- By Laura Kuenssberg
- Moderator, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg
Jun 24, 2023 2:34pm BST
Updated 32 minutes ago
video caption,
Watch: All sides should take responsibility and protect civilians – British Prime Minister
Rishi Sunak has called on all sides in Russia to “take responsibility and protect civilians,” while Wagner Group mercenaries are seizing military sites in Russia and Vladimir Putin vowing to “punish” those involved in the crackdown on his government .
In the UK, a meeting of the Cobra Emergency Committee was held on Saturday afternoon, chaired by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.
We don’t learn much about what is said at these meetings, but the government says Mr Cleverly has received the latest information and has paid particular attention to the situation of British nationals still in Russia.
Mr. Sunak is later scheduled to speak to allies over the phone about how the international community should respond to the events.
Speaking exclusively to Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, Mr Sunak suggested the government has been monitoring internal threats against Vladimir Putin for some time.
He told me, “We have been observing for some time the potentially destabilizing effects of Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine.”
And he said the situation “is developing on the ground as we speak”.
But he called for calm on all sides, saying: “The most important thing I would say is that all parties take responsibility and protect the civilian population.” For months, of course, the focus has been on the fighting in Ukraine.
The prime minister did not echo a more frank assessment by the defense ministry, which declared on its official Twitter feed that “this represents the biggest challenge the Russian state has faced in recent memory.”
But Mr Sunak did not deny this.
With so much unclear, it’s obvious that Number 10 doesn’t want to give an official verdict on what’s happened just yet.
However, it is clear from the Department of Defense’s comments that the government sees the action taking place as a potential game changer.
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The situation is unstable and no one in Westminster can predict with certainty what will happen next.
It is not clear exactly what the motives of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozchin are.
It is also not certain how many resources and men Wagner actually has.
But one of the questions being asked in Westminster this afternoon is how Ukraine can make the best of the apparent disarray within Russia to make headway in what is now a long-running conflict.
Our politicians, like the rest of us, are watching events and wondering what on earth is going on, unable to be sure what will happen next. But they watch with rapt attention.
The war in Ukraine had such a huge impact on UK politicians because it indirectly affected every family, business and household in the country by driving up energy bills.
This is one of the biggest factors behind the high inflation, which the Prime Minister calls “enemy number one”.
That’s what we talk to the Prime Minister, his plans for the NHS and Boris Johnson in an exclusive interview you can watch on Sunday morning.
But as events unfold in Russia, remember that the actions of one man, Vladimir Putin, turned so much on its head here.
Moscow may be almost 2,000 miles away, but what happens to stability in Russia over the next few days is of great importance to our leaders in Westminster and to all of us.