US Intel Community Believes Putin In Stronger Position After Mutiny - Hersh

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 29th June, 2023) The US intelligence community believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin has consolidated his power in the aftermath of the attempted mutiny by Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin last week, Seymour Hersh wrote in an article, citing a source with knowledge of the matter.

"First and most importantly, Putin is now in a much stronger position," a source in the American intelligence community was quoted by Hersh as saying.

As early as January, the US intelligence community foresaw an inevitable conflict between the generals, backed by Putin, and Prigozhin, supported by "ultra-nationalist extremists," in which the armed forces would definitely come out as winners, the source added.

"Putin fully backed the army who let Prigozhin make a fool of himself and now disappear into ignominy. All without raising a sweat militarily or causing Putin to face a political standoff with the fundamentalists, who were ardent Prigozhin admirers.

Pretty shrewd," the source said.

According to Hersh, there is an "enormous" gap between the way the professionals in the American intelligence community and the White House and US media assess the situation in Russia following the mutiny.

The Wagner Group seized an army headquarters in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on the night of June 23 and moved toward Moscow the following day. Prigozhin presented his actions as a response to an alleged attack on his group's field camps by the Russian Defense Ministry, which they latter denied. The Wagner Group chief agreed to stop the mutiny after negotiations with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who acted at the request of President Putin.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Prigozhin would not face prosecution in Russia and would relocate to Belarus. On Tuesday, Lukashenko confirmed that the Wagner Group head had arrived in Belarus.