Official Washington Taken Aback by the Speedy Resolution of the ‘Russia Crisis’

The speedy resolution of the Prigozhin “revolt” has caught official Washington by surprise. While they had been “licking their chops” at the possibility of an internal revolt against President Putin, for which they had been hoping, the rapid resolution of the crisis, with very limited loss of life, thanks to the intervention of Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko, took the fetid air out of that balloon. Of course, the general tenor of remarks on the Sunday American talk shows was that the mutiny showed how weak the Russian President in fact is, in first threatening military action against the conspirators, and then, “cutting a deal” with its head. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Jonathan Karl on CBS News: “So, I think this is clearly—we see cracks emerging. Where they go, if anywhere, (and) when they get there, (is) very hard to say.” There was additional “magical thinking” blather about how China will now be less open to Putin, who has proved himself such a weak leader, showing no understanding or perhaps even acquaintance with the Feb. 4, 2022 meeting between them, at which they produced their “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development.” (http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/5770 )