allies warned Kyiv against attacks during Prigozhin’s rebellion

Even before the head of PMC “Wagner” Yevgeny Prigozhin announced the end of his armed campaign against Moscow, allies of Ukraine in the West contacted officials in Kyiv to warn them against “using chaos” inside Russia to strike. This is reported by the CNN channel with reference to the western official source.

As noted by the TV channel, the fear was that the Russian authorities would consider Ukraine and the West as forces that help Prigozhin and threaten the sovereignty of Russia.

According to the interlocutor of CNN, in the conversation with the Ukrainian partners it was emphasized that the rebellion of Prigozhin and his PMC “Wagner” is an internal matter of Russia. The allies warned the Ukrainians not to provoke the situation, not to interfere in internal affairs, not to strike military targets inside Russia and to use combat capabilities only on Ukrainian territory, the CNN interlocutor said.

American and other Western politicians, commenting on Prigozhin’s rebellion against the Russian military leadership last week, said precisely that this was Russia’s internal matter.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin, who addressed the Russians for the second time late on Monday evening in connection with the Prigozhin rebellion, said that the organizers of the riots “betrayed their country and their people”, but did not mention any names. At the same time, Putin said that “the enemies of Russia wanted fratricide,” and he listed among the enemies, as he put it, the “western patrons” of Kyiv.
• US President Joe Biden, who commented on recent events in Russia for the first time on June 26, said that Washington was not involved in the mutiny of the head of the Russian PMC “Wagner” Prigozhin. “This is part of the struggle within the Russian system,” the American president emphasized, adding that he had been following what was happening in Russia and was discussing what was happening online with key allies of the United States.