‘The West had nothing to do with this’: Biden addresses Russia crisis

President Joe Biden on Monday addressed the ongoing political crisis in Russia, rejecting the notion that the U.S. and Western allies were responsible for the aborted rebellion led by mercenaries in Russia over the weekend.

Speaking at the White House at an event about broadband access, Biden said U.S. officials worked to ensure Russia could not blame the crisis on the West. "We made it clear — the West had nothing to do with this," Biden said. Biden also said U.S. officials were prepared for "a range of scenarios" and that he convened allies on a Zoom call shortly after the crisis began.

The comments came after an unexpected political crisis in Russia that threatened the stability of Vladimir Putin’s regime, and caught American officials, and others around the world, off guard. On Friday, Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, formerly a close confidant of Putin, accused the Russian military of attacking Wagner troops with missile strikes. Prigozhin and his forces occupied the city of Rostov-on-Don, near the Ukrainian border, and began moving toward Moscow.

The mutiny was over by Sunday. For reasons that remain unclear, Prigozhin stopped his advance and struck a deal that would drop treason charges against him and require him to leave Russia for Belarus. On Sunday, Wagner troops withdrew from Russia’s southern Voronezh region.

Prigozhin broke his silence Monday. “We stopped when it became clear that a lot of blood would flow,” he said in an audio statement posted on his Telegram channel. “The demonstration of what we could do was sufficient. Our decision to return was driven by two factors. One, that we did not want Russian blood to flow. The second factor was that we went to demonstrate our protest, and not to overthrow the government of the country.”

Despite the apparent lull in the crisis, Biden has said the United States will continue watching the situation in Russia closely. "We're gonna keep assessing the fallout of this weekend's events," Biden said Monday. The U.S. and its allies, Biden added, will also present a united front.

"No matter comes next, I will keep making sure that our allies and our partners are closely aligned in how we are reading and responding to the situation. it is important that we stay completely coordinated," Biden said Monday.