“The monster that (Vladimir Putin has created with Wagner it’s biting you The monster is acting against its creator,” warned the high representative for foreign policy of the EU, Josep Borrellupon his arrival this Monday at the meeting of foreign ministers of the European Union in allusion to the failed “armed insurrection” carried out this past weekend by the group of mercenaries from Yevgeny Prigozhin. According to the reading offered by the European politician at the end of the meeting, the situation is “complex” and “unpredictable”, it shows that military power in Russia is “cracking”, which is affecting the political system, and warns of the risk which would mean that a nuclear power enters a phase of political instability.
“It is important to understand that this is cracking Russia’s military power and affecting its political system. And, of course, it is not good that a nuclear power like Russia can enter a phase of political instability. It is also something to be aware of. into account”, recalled Borrell from the Council of Foreign Ministers held in Luxembourg. A concern shared by the rest of the heads of European diplomacy. “Russia is one of the great nuclear powers on the planet and we cannot be indifferent to what happens there,” recalled the Austrian alexander schallenberg, warning that “Putin took the genie out of the lamp and now he is after him”. “It would be absolutely dangerous for Europe if the largest country in the world, with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, collapsed,” warned the Luxembourger. Jean Asselborn.
Despite this fear, the Twenty-seven have insisted that what happened is a “internal affair Russian” and have avoided speculating on the consequences of Prigozhin’s failed attempt. “I fully understand the concern raised by these events but thinking about what will happen in the future is a guessing exercise. We don’t have a crystal ball. I insist that it is an internal Russian matter. There has been an armed insurrection, by an armed group with military capabilities that has risen up against the government to impose its conditions on it. We have nothing to do with this,” Borrell has settled, who, like the rest of the foreign ministers, has opted for caution about what Wagner’s mercenaries who have abandoned their positions on the Ukrainian front will do.
“It’s only been a few hours since all this news broke and we have to do more analysis,” said Tobias Billstrom of Sweden, who holds the EU’s biannual presidency this semester. The reading is shared by Paris and Berlin, which have recognized that “there are many gray areas”, as assessed by the French minister Catherine Colonnaand that in any case “it is still not clear what is happening (…) because it is only an act in the Russian show”, has opined the German minister annalena baerbock.
Putin weakened
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The diagnosis, in any case, is shared: the Russian president is weakened. “What seemed like a monolithic internal Russian solidity has shown that it has gaps, and gaps that are deep and perhaps deeper than the facts already show,” said the Spaniard. Jose Manuel Albares after a meeting that has served to agree on the extension of the endowment of the European Fund for Peace (EPF), the instrument with which it finances the purchase of arms from Ukraine and other European operations, in €3.5 billion. What continues to be blocked, due to Hungary’s veto, is the go-ahead for a new tranche of 500 million euros to finance the purchase of arms from Ukraine. “It is still not resolved and we have to resolve it as soon as possible,” Borrell said.
That, the European diplomats maintain, should be the goal to be pursued in the coming months: continue to help kyiv to stand up to Russian aggression and not be distracted by events like those of the weekend. “Now is the time to continue supporting Ukraine more than ever, and that is what we will do,” promised the Spanish politician who, like the rest of the ministers, has avoided speculating about possible consequences. “We remain vigilant and committed,” he added after hearing the latest assessment from the Ukrainian minister Dmitro Kuleba.