WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Monday (Jun 26) said a brief uprising by Russian mercenaries against the Kremlin is part of a struggle within the Russian system and the United States and its allies were not involved in it.
“We made clear we were not involved, we had nothing to do with this,” Biden said in his first comments on the uprising by Wagner mercenaries that fizzled over the weekend.
At a White House event, Biden addressed the dramatic power struggle that erupted over the weekend when the mutineers barrelled toward Moscow only to stop before reaching the capital.
Biden said he had directed his national security team to update him on the situation “hour by hour” and to prepare for a range of scenarios, which he did not detail.
Russian intelligence services are investigating whether Western spy agencies played a role in the aborted mutiny, the TASS news agency quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Monday.