Faced with Wagner’s Rebellion, the United States cautiously avoids the trap of interference in Russian affairs

2023-06-27 05:33:54
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington DC, June 23, 2023. SAMUEL CORUM / AFP

The embers being still burning, it is useless to estimate their weight at this hour. Faced with the unprecedented but unsuccessful challenge posed by the Wagner Group to the Kremlin for a weekend, the Biden administration adopted a vigilant and cautious position. It was formulated on Sunday by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on television sets. If Wagner’s aborted march to Moscow is a “domestic affair”it nevertheless reveals “new cracks” in the Russian regime. “It is simply the last chapter in the book of failures that Putin wrote for himself and for Russia”and this M. Blinken sur NBC.

For his part, the Washington Post revealed that the American services had detected as early as mid-June Wagner’s preparations for a major operation in Russia itself. Unlike the weeks preceding the war in Ukraine, when the Biden administration denounced Russian military mobilization, this time it chose to remain silent. It had no interest either in helping Vladimir Putin or in exposing itself to the inevitable accusations of a foreign conspiracy. “We gave Putin no excuse for blaming the West or NATO, said Joe Biden on Monday. We made it clear that we had nothing to do with it. »

In the haze that surrounds the rebellion of the Wagner Group, the United States draws a reason for satisfaction and concern: the weakening of Vladimir Putin. This ambivalence is at the heart of American policy towards Moscow. The fear of emptiness coexists with the will to weaken. Such a debate had divided the administration of George Bush after the failure of the putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, until the dissolution of the USSR a few months later. “There is a constant concern in the West of a collapse of Russia, which would be taken over by forces more vicious and crazed than Putin, with terrible consequences in terms of nuclear weapons, underlines Maria Snegovaïa, researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). But I am glad to see the position of neutrality adopted by the Biden administration. The West should not scare itself with catastrophic hypotheses, which would lead to pressure on the Ukrainians to conclude an agreement that would not solve anything. »

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Frisson

Today, Washington seeks to neutralize the harmful potential of Russia outside its borders, on a military, cyber level, or that of disinformation. This was already the main aim of the meeting between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin in Geneva in June 2021, eight months before the start of the war in Ukraine. At present, the priority of the allies consists in offering the Ukrainians the maximum of military support to facilitate their counter-offensive and regain ground before any negotiation.

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