CIA Director Bill Burns called Russian President Vladimir Putin “the ultimate apostle of payback,” adding he'd be surprised if Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin escaped further retribution after last month's mutiny.
According to Burns, Putin is simply "trying to buy time" to determine whether and how to act against Prigozhin, to avoid being seen to overreact.
“What we’re seeing is a very complicated dance between Prigozhin and Putin. I think Putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold. So he’s going to try to settle the situation to the extent he can," Burns added.
"If I were Prigozhin, I wouldn’t fire my food taster," the US official said.
The CIA chief made the comments at the Aspen Security Forum on Thursday. Burns’ comments come two days after the head of MI6, the UK’s intelligence agency, Richard Moore, said that Prigozhin was “floating about," and that Putin “cut a deal to save his skin.”
During the forum, Burns said he believes Prigozhin has recently been in Minsk, Belarus.
CNN reported earlier this week on a video that appeared to show Prigozhin greeting his fighters in Belarus, in what would be his first public appearance since he led an armed rebellion in Russia last month.
On the morning that Prigozhin launched his insurrection, he released a video directly criticizing Putin’s rationale for invading Ukraine. Burns characterized that video as “the most scathing indictment of Putin’s rationale for war, of the conduct of war, of the corruption at the core of Putin’s regime that I’ve heard from a Russian or a non-Russian.”
Burns also provided an update on a call put out on Telegram in May by the CIA that urged Russians disaffected by the war in Ukraine and life in Russia to share their secrets. He said the Telegram video got 2.5 million views in the first week.
“The truth is, there’s a lot of disaffection in Russia, in the elite and outside it in Russia right now, and we’re not wasting the opportunity as an intelligence service to try to take advantage of it,” said Burns, calling it a “once in a generation” opportunity for intelligence gathering.
