US, allies not involved in uprising against Kremlin, says Biden

US, allies not involved in uprising against Kremlin, says Biden

WASHINGTON/ MOSCOW: US President Joe Biden on Monday said a brief uprising by Russian mercenaries against the Kremlin was part of a struggle within the Russian system and the Washington 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.

Russian intelligence services were 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.

Biden said he spoke with key allies on a video conference to make sure everyone was on the same page and coordinated in their response. Putin’s former ‘puppet master’ urges an end to mercenary groups like Wagner

“They agreed with me that we had to make sure that we gave (Russian President Vladimir) Putin no excuse — gave Putin no excuse — to blame this on the West and blame this on Nato,” he said.

He said he and his team would continue assessing the fallout from the incident. “It’s still too early to reach a definitive conclusion about where this is going,” he added.

President Vladimir Putin’s former chief strategist on Monday urged an end to mercenary groups in Russia after a mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner militia, cautioning that they interfered with the chain of command.