Former CIA director and retired U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin “should be very careful around open windows” after he called off the armed rebellion he launched against Russia’s leaders.
Anchor Dana Bash said, “I want to talk about the impact on Ukraine, but let’s talk about what’s happening inside Russia. A wild 24 hours. What do you think of what happened and what do you believe it means for Putin’s standing inside Russia?”
Petraeus said, “Well, I think, clearly Putin is weakened. His government is weakened. The irony is that his junior partner in Belarus Lukashenko had to bail him out of this. Prigozhin kept his life, but lost his Wagner Group, and he should be very careful around open windows in his new surroundings in Belarus where he’s going. Clearly, Prigozhin lost his nerve. He was, as you noted earlier within two hours’ drive of the outskirts of Moscow where they were trying to prepare defensive positions. This rebellion, although it had some applause along the way didn’t appear to be generating the kind of support that he’d hoped it would and, again, he decided to take the deal and a stunning series of developments. Putin fled Moscow, reportedly, didn’t stay around and we haven’t seen anything of Putin’s minister of defense.”
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