US State Secy Blinken warns world is yet to see the 'last chapter' of Putin-Wagner drama

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that the world is yet to see the last chapter of the Putin-Prigozhin drama. During a one-on-one interview with American News outlet MSNBC, Blinken touched upon wide-ranging challenges that have engulfed the world. The Wagner rebellion that engulfed the country last month raised questions about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hold on domestic affairs. In the Tuesday interview, Blinken was asked for his take on Putin’s meeting with the Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin. 

“I don’t think we’ve seen the last chapter in this drama. The fact that Putin met with Prigozhin, look, it’s an internal matter. Putin is clearly trying to work his way through something,” Blinken told MSNBC News on Tuesday. “But this was a direct challenge to his authority, a direct challenge to the basic premises of the war that he laid out. And I don’t think we’ve seen the last of it,” he added. Blinken remained uncertain on whether this meeting indicated Putin’s weakness and stated he is not sure if the group will continue operating for Russia in Ukraine amid the war. 

“It’s not something that I can speculate on. What we do know is this. For years, Putin denied any knowledge of Wagner having anything to do with it, and of course, he turned around and said, yeah, Wagner works for us, and of course, not just in Ukraine, but in Syria, in country after country in Africa,” Blinken told the American news outlet. “Everywhere that Wagner has gone we’ve seen death, we’ve seen destruction, we’ve seen exploitation across the board.  It has been a potent force for Russia in Ukraine.  So exactly what happens, where it goes, whether it continues to operate alongside Russian military in Ukraine, that’s an open question,” he stated. 

Blinken defends the decision to send cluster munition to Ukraine 

During the interview, the US Secretary of State also defended the Biden administration’s decision to send controversial cluster munition to Ukraine. Blinken made it clear that it was a “hard but necessary decision” to send cluster munition to Ukraine. “If we didn’t do it, we don’t do it, then they will run out of ammunition.  If they run out of ammunition, they will be defenceless.  We have been working very hard to make sure that the productive capacity to make the conventional munitions that they need is being ramped up.  But there was going to be a gap between when they ran really low on those munitions, and when the new ones were able to come online,” Blinken asserted. “These cluster munitions fill the gap, and it’s something that is – in this case, is Ukraine using these munitions in defence of its own territory, in defence of its own people, on its territory.  We know they’re going to use them very carefully, very deliberately.  It’s very different than using these munitions for a war of aggression, which Russia has been doing from day one, using cluster munitions against Ukraine from the start of this war,” he added. 

When questioned about its deadly results and how it can affect the lives of civilians for a very long time, the US Secretary of State made it clear that Russia has been using these bombs from “day one”. “That’s (issue of demining) already the case because of the Russian use of these munitions. And again, it comes down to a very basic proposition, which is in the absence of giving them these munitions now to make sure that there’s not a gap between when their inventories of existing munitions run out and when new munitions come online, this is what needed to be done,” Blinken said. “The President made a hard but necessary decision,” he concluded.