Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he discussed the weekend’s turmoil in Russia in phone calls with the leaders of the United States, Canada and Poland on Sunday, and that the “weakness” of Russian president Vladimir Putin had been “exposed”.
The phone calls took place after an extraordinary failed mutiny by Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin on Saturday that raised questions about Putin’s grip on power as Ukraine presses a counteroffensive in its south and east.
“We discussed the course of hostilities and the processes taking place in Russia. The world must put pressure on Russia until international order is restored,” Zelenskiy said after a phone call with US president Joe Biden.
He said he and Biden had also discussed further expanding defence co-operation with an emphasis on long-range weapons, co-ordination ahead of the Nato summit in Vilnius next month and preparations for a “Global Peace Summit” he has promoted.
“Yesterday’s events exposed the weakness of Putin’s regime,” the statement said.
In another similar statement, Zelenskiy said he had told Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau in a phone call about the “threatening situation” at Ukraine’s vast, Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Zelenskiy warned earlier this week that Russia was considering carrying out an act of “terrorism” involving the release of radiation at the plant, an allegation denied by Russia.
“Ukraine’s partners must demonstrate a principled response, in particular at the Nato Summit in Vilnius,” he said.
The Ukrainian leader made similar comments in a statement announcing a phone call with Polish president Andrzej Duda.
Russian state television on Sunday showed Mr Putin expressing confidence in plans for Ukraine in an interview that appeared to have been recorded before Saturday’s aborted revolt by the Wagner group of mercenaries.
Ukraine on Sunday dismissed the revolt as “the most ridiculous attempt at mutiny” ever.
“We feel confident, and, of course, we are in a position to implement all the plans and tasks ahead of us,” Mr Putin said. “This also applies to the country’s defence, it applies to the special military operation, it applies to the economy as a whole and its individual areas.”
The comments in an interview with Kremlin correspondent Pavel Zarubin were broadcast by Rossiya state television. Mr Zarubin said the interview had been conducted after a meeting with military graduates, in an apparent reference to an event held on Wednesday.
The full interview was due to be broadcast later on Sunday.
The short report did not mention Saturday’s revolt, in which Wagner mercenaries took a southern city before heading toward Moscow. In a televised address before the drama was defused and the group stopped its advance, Mr Putin said the rebellion had put Russia’s very existence under threat.
In its daily briefing on Sunday the defence ministry also did not mention anything about the actions of Wagner Mr Prigozhin.
Asked in the interview how much time he dedicates to what Russia calls its special military operation, Mr Putin said: “Of course, this is paramount, every day starts and ends with this.”
An adviser to the Ukrainian defence minister described the Wagner rebellion as “the most ridiculous attempt at mutiny” ever. “This only makes Russia weaker and makes us stronger,” Yuriy Sak told BBC Radio 4′s The World This Weekend.
“What happened yesterday in Russia, it will probably go down in history as the most ridiculous attempt at mutiny that was ever attempted,” he said. “There can be no hope for some kind of internal transformation in Russia. It’s only going to happen on the battlefield.”
US secretary of state Antony Blinken on Sunday said the turmoil caused by the unprecedented challenge to the authority of President Putin by Wagner fighters may not be over yet and could take weeks or months to play out.
Blinken in a series of television interviews said tensions that led to the aborted mutiny by forces led by Yevgeny Prigozhin had been rising for months and that the turmoil could affect Moscow’s capabilities in Ukraine.
“Our focus is resolutely and relentlessly on Ukraine, making sure that it has what it needs to defend itself and to take back territory that Russia seized,” Blinken told NBC’s Meet the Press programme.
He told ABC’s This Week programme: “To the extent that the Russians are distracted and divided it may make their prosecution of aggression against Ukraine more difficult.”
Blinken said neither the United States nor the Russian nuclear posture had changed as a result of the crisis.
Transport restrictions
All transport restrictions in Russia’s Rostov region have been lifted, including those on highways, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday, after the Wagner revolt ended on Saturday.
The brief rebellion, which saw the mercenary group’s soldiers move unimpeded for hundreds of miles towards Moscow, fizzled out after Mr Prigozhin reached a deal with the Kremlin to go into exile and sounded the retreat. The deal was mediated by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko.
Mr Prigozhin said his mercenary unit’s camps in Ukraine had been attacked by rival forces from the Russian military on Friday, leading to them taking over the strategic city of Rostov-on-Don and marching towards Moscow before a deal was agreed for them to withdraw.
[ How will the Wagner revolt affect the Ukraine war?Opens in new window ]
Under the deal announced on Saturday by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Mr Prigozhin will go to neighbouring Belarus, which has supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with charges against him of mounting an armed rebellion dropped.
The government also said it would not prosecute Wagner fighters who took part, while those who did not join in were to be offered contracts by the defence ministry.
Wagner troops advanced to just 200km (120 miles) from Moscow, according to Mr Prigozhin. But after the deal was struck, he announced that he had decided to retreat to avoid “shedding Russian blood”.
Mr Prigozhin ordered his troops back to their field camps in Ukraine, where they have been fighting alongside Russian regular soldiers.
An “antiterrorist operation regime” was still in force in Moscow on Sunday. Moscow authorities also said a day off work introduced to curb movement around the city on Monday would remain in place for security reasons.
[ How Wagner, a Frankenstein’s monster, eventually turned on its creator PutinOpens in new window ]
Chechen special forces deployed to Russia’s Rostov region to resist an advance by the mercenary group were withdrawing on Sunday, the Tass news agency reported, citing a commander.
Elsewhere, Wagner fighters were leaving Russia’s southern Voronezh region on Sunday, the local governor said. “The movement of Wagner units through the Voronezh region is ending,” Voronezh governor Alexander Gusev said according to AFP.
He added that travel restrictions imposed during Saturday’s operation against the mutiny would be lifted once “the situation is finally resolved”.
Mr Putin had vowed to punish those behind the armed uprising led by his one-time protege, calling the rebellion a “betrayal” and “treason” during a televised address.
In allowing Mr Prigozhin and his forces to go free, Mr Peskov said Mr Putin’s “highest goal” was “to avoid bloodshed and internal confrontation with unpredictable results”.
Wagner troops have played a crucial role in the Ukraine war, capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut, but Mr Prigozhin has increasingly criticised the military top brass, accusing it of incompetence and of starving his troops of munitions.
US congressional leaders were reportedly briefed on a build-up of Wagner forces days before their commander claimed the attacks that sparked their rebellion against Russia took place.
CNN and the New York Times are reporting that US intelligence briefings on Wagner building troops near the Russian border were taking place from earlier in the week.
Some observers said the Russian leader’s strong man image had taken a hit with former US ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst telling CNN: “Putin has been diminished for all time by this affair.”
Moscow had braced for the arrival of the Wagner forces by erecting checkpoints with armoured vehicles and troops on the city’s southern edge.
About 3,000 Chechen soldiers were pulled from fighting in Ukraine and rushed there early on Saturday, state television in Chechnya reported.
Russian troops armed with machine guns put up checkpoints on Moscow’s southern outskirts. Crews dug up sections of highways to slow the march.
Ukrainians hoped the Russian infighting would create opportunities for their army to take back territory seized by Russian forces.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Saturday, shortly before Mr Prigozhin announced his retreat, that the march exposed weakness in the Kremlin and “showed all Russian bandits, mercenaries, oligarchs” that it is easy to capture Russian cities “and, probably, arsenals”. – Agencies