BRUSSELS: The European Union’s foreign ministers said on Monday that an unsuccessful mutiny in Russia over the weekend showed that Moscow’s war in Ukraine was producing domestic instability and compromising its military power, but they remained committed to assisting Kyiv.
Wagner mercenary fighters led by renegade leader Yevgeny Prigozhin seized control of military headquarters in southern Russia on Saturday and began moving towards Moscow before abruptly returning to eastern Ukraine following a deal with the Kremlin.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, told reporters in Luxembourg as he arrived for a meeting with ministers from across the 27-member bloc that the political system is failing and the military might be diminishing. He said that it is not good to watch a nuclear power like Russia enter a period of political uncertainty and that now is the time for the EU to continue assisting Ukraine more than ever.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Borrell, was paying the price for creating a “monster” with Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenary group. He said the monster that Putin created with Wagner is now biting him and acting against his creator.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Putin’s “brutal war of aggression” in Ukraine was harming his own country. She continued on to say that they are witnessing significant flaws in Russian propaganda. According to Baerbock, the EU will focus on assisting Ukraine in its fight to allow its people to live in peace and freedom. The ministers emphasized that the mutiny was entirely internal to Russia, with no foreign influence. They also made it obvious that the implications extended far beyond Russia’s borders.
According to Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, it would be highly dangerous for Europe if the world’s largest country with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons were to be shattered. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg suggested Putin should “turn around” like Prigozhin.
The weekend’s events, according to Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, showed that Putin’s hold on power was not as firm as it appeared. She told reporters that in authoritarian states, everything appears to be quite stable until one day, everything is no longer stable. And she expects a similar development in Russia.
