Putin plots revenge on Wagner boss for his failed mutiny, warns CIA chief as he warns Yevgeny Prigozhin ‘don’t fire your food taster’
- “Putin generally believes that revenge is a dish best served cold,” said William Burns
Vladimir Putin is the “ultimate apostle of vengeance” and likely plotting revenge on Yevgeny Prigozhin after the failed Wagner group mutiny, the CIA chief said.
“If I were Prigozhin, I wouldn’t fire my food taster,” William Burns, director of the CIA, warned the mercenary chief.
The intelligence chief said the failed Wagner PMC mutiny exposed “significant weaknesses” in the Kremlin’s power structure and called into question Russia’s justification of the war in Ukraine, with Prigozhin claiming it was built on lies.
The brief mutiny was the most direct challenge to Putin in his 23 years in power, one that Burns said the tyrant would not take lightly.
“Putin is someone who generally thinks revenge is a dish best served cold,” Burns told the Aspen Security Forum last night, adding that he “would be surprised if Prigozhin escaped further retaliation.”
“If I were Prigozhin, I wouldn’t fire my food taster,” CIA director William Burns warned the mercenary chief at the Aspen Security Forum
The leader of the Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin speaks June 2 at the headquarters of the Russian Southern Army’s military command center in the city of Rostov-on-Don
Putin appears to have struck a deal brokered by his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko to allow Prigozhin and his men free passage to Belarus after they resigned in their attempted coup.
It’s not a matter of “forgive and forget” though, as Burns claims Putin is just buying time while he considers how best to deal with his treacherous ex-chef.
In June, the Russian leader described the Wagner Group’s march on Moscow as “a stab in the back of the troops and the Russian people.”
“What we’re seeing is a very complicated dance,” Burns said Thursday, according to the BBC.
Burns also claimed that Russian elites were increasingly questioning Putin’s judgment, particularly after the 24-hour Wagner group mutiny in June, during which it looked like they might make it as far as Moscow.
“It raised some deeper questions … about Putin’s judgment, about his relative distance from events and even about his indecisiveness,” Burns said.
Vladimir Putin described the Wagner Group’s march on Moscow as “a stab in the back of the troops and the Russian people”.
His comments came after the head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency yesterday delivered a strong message to Putin urging him to pull out of Ukraine or risk falling.
Sir Richard Moore said the only way for the Russian leader to ensure his “career stability” and save his own skin from the “chaos that is spreading to Russian state politics” is to withdraw Russian troops.
In a rare public address, he made an extraordinary appeal for Russians to spy for MI6, also known as the Secret Intelligence Service. He compared the fate of their country to Shakespeare’s doomed Hamlet.
“Unless Putin can see one of his closest protégés turn to his defense minister and chief of staff in the first place, there is a massive explosion in the Kremlin, causing troops, heavily armed troops, to advance to within 125 km (77 miles) of Moscow.”
“I’m sure he must realize that something is very wrong in the state of Denmark, to quote Hamlet.” “It was quite humiliating – he had to make a deal to save his own skin.”