Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that, although the immediate threat of a Wagner militia coup may have subsided, threats to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leadership might not be over. “This is an unfolding story,” Blinken told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “We haven’t seen the last act. We’re watching it very closely.” Over the weekend, Putin was put on the defensive when Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin—once a close Putin ally—and his forces took control of a key Russian city and threatened a march on Moscow. The effort was squashed on Saturday after Prigozhin struck a deal to leave Russia, but Blinken said the brief scare for Putin represented a significant lapse in his power. “Sixteen months ago, Russian forces were on the doorstep of Kyiv in Ukraine, thinking they’d take the city in a matter of days, thinking they would erase Ukraine from the map as an independent country,” Blinken said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Now, over this weekend, they’ve had to defend Moscow, Russia’s capital, against mercenaries of Putin’s own making.”
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