Biden: US, allies not involved in uprising against Putin

"We made clear we were not involved, we had nothing to do with this," Biden said in his first comments on the uprising by Wagner mercenaries that fizzled over the weekend.

At a White House event, Biden addressed the dramatic power struggle that erupted over the weekend when the mutineers barreled toward Moscow only to stop before reaching the capital.

Biden said he had directed his national security team to update him on the situation "hour by hour" and to prepare for a range of scenarios, which he did not detail.

Biden said he spoke with key allies on a video conference to make sure everyone was on the same page and coordinated in their response.

"They agreed with me that we had to make sure that we gave (Russian President Vladimir) Putin no excuse - gave Putin no excuse - to blame this on the West and blame this on Nato," he said.

Biden, who spoke to Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelinskiy on Sunday said he would be speaking to him again later on Monday or Tuesday.

He also planned to speak later with the leader of another ally whose name he did not disclose.

He said he and his team would continue assessing the fallout from the incident.

"It's still too early to reach a definitive conclusion about where this is going," he added.

He said his message to allies is "It's important that we stay completely coordinated."

Russia checking if Western agencies were involved in mutiny - Lavrov

Russian intelligence services are investigating whether Western spy agencies played a role in the aborted mutiny by Wagner mercenary fighters on Saturday, said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Monday.

In an interview with Russian RT television, Lavrov said US Ambassador Lynne Tracy had spoken to Russian representatives on Sunday and given "signals" that the United States was not involved in the mutiny, but it hoped that Russia's nuclear arsenal would be kept safe.

He also quoted Tracy as saying the mutiny was Russia's internal affair.

Tracy told Russian officials that the United States expects Russia to uphold its obligations to protect the embassy and diplomatic personnel.

Several Western leaders have said the incident shows that instability is growing in Russia as a result of President Vladimir Putin's decision to send his armed forces into Ukraine early last year.

Asked whether there was any evidence that neither Ukrainian nor Western intelligence services were involved in the mutiny, Lavrov replied:

"I work in a department that does not collect evidence about illegal actions, but we have such structures, and I assure you, they already understand this."

Doubts over Wagner's future have raised questions about whether it will continue its operations in African countries such as Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR), where its forces have played a big role in long-running internal conflicts.

Since the conflict in Ukraine undermined Russia's ties and trade with the West, the Kremlin has also been underlining its commitment to Africa.

Lavrov told RT that Mali and the CAR both maintained official contacts with Moscow alongside their relations with Wagner, adding: "Several hundred servicemen are working in the CAR as instructors; this work, of course, will be continued."

Lavrov also said Ukrainian allegations that Russia plans to stage an attack involving a release of radiation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine were "nonsense," he said.

US used diplomatic channels to send direct messages to Moscow -White House

The United States used various diplomatic channels to send a message to Russia that there was no U.S. involvement in the uprising against the Kremlin, the White House said on Monday.

John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, told reporters the messages were sent over the weekend. He did not say how Moscow responded.

Kirby said a new package of US assistance for Ukraine would be announced soon. Sources told Reuters that the United States would announce as soon as Tuesday a new military aid package for Ukraine worth up to $500 million.

US says it is a new thing to see Putin's leadership directly challenged

The US State Department on Monday said the situation in Russia remains dynamic days after an aborted mutiny, and said it does not have any assessment about the whereabouts of the boss of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

"It is certainly a new thing to see President Putin's leadership directly challenged. It is a new thing to see Yevgeny Prigozhin directly questioning the rationale for this war and calling out that the war has been conducted essentially based on a lie," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.

Prigozhin shocked the world by leading Saturday's armed revolt, only to abruptly call it off as his fighters approached Moscow, the Russian capital, having shot down several aircraft but meeting no resistance on the ground during a dash of nearly 800 km (500 miles). Prigozhin's Wagner has fought the bloodiest battles of the 16-month war in Ukraine.

Trudeau says aborted mutiny is an internal issue for Russia to work through

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday said that the aborted mutiny in Russia was an internal issue for Moscow to work through and that too much speculation over it could prove counterproductive.

"This is something that the Russians will be dealing with over the coming days," Trudeau told reporters in Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland, after meeting leaders of Nordic countries.

He added that it was important for Canada and its allies to monitor the situation.

"Watching but not getting involved, I think is the responsible and safe thing to do," Trudeau said.

Senior Russian officials rallied around President Vladimir Putin on Monday, after the aborted mutiny by mercenaries that appeared to pose the greatest threat to his grip on power of his 23-year rule.

Prigozhin's rebellion an 'unprecedented challenge' to Putin - British FM

British foreign minister James Cleverly said on Monday the aborted mutiny by Russia's Wagner mercenary group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, represented an unprecedented challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Prigozhin’s rebellion is an unprecedented challenge to President Putin’s authority and it is clear cracks are emerging in Russian support for the war," he told parliament.

UK's Wallace warns against over-crediting Kremlin 'destabilisation'

British defence minister Ben Wallace warned against over-crediting the Russian "destabilisation" brought about by Saturday's armed revolt by Wagner forces during his closing speech at the RUSI annual conference on Monday.

"The war in Ukraine is still being prosecuted by the Russian general staff, and as I sit here right now, General Gerasimov and Minister Shoigu are still doing their day job," he said.

When asked whether Russian President Putin chose to invade Ukraine because Nato had not shown sufficient political will or expenditure to create a formidable defence force, Wallace said he did not believe Putin was "frightened of Nato", but that the Russian leader was "probably more willing to do it" in 2014 because of a lack of collective action by the international community.

"We should have been much tougher in 2014," he added.

Wallace also addressed General Tim Radford's recent comment that the British Army is too small, saying it was still "one of the biggest armed forces in Europe".

The defence minister was also asked to address speculation that he wishes to become Nato's next Secretary General after Jens Stoltenberg.

"First of all, you don't quite apply, but look I'm not going to be doing it this year, or next year or the year after, so you know it's for others to take up that job," he told the conference audience.

'We didn't want to overthrow the government' - Prigozhin, in his first comments since the mutiny

Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Monday that a one-day mutiny by his Wagner force had been intended not to overthrow Russia's government but to register a protest over what he said was its ineffectual conduct of the conflict in Ukraine.

In his first public comments since ending the mutiny late on Saturday, Prigozhin repeated his frequent claim that Wagner was the most effective fighting force in Russia "and even the world," and that it put to shame the units that Moscow had sent into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

He said the way it had been able to seize the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don without bloodshed and to send an armed convoy to within 200 km of Moscow had been a testament to the effectiveness of his fighters.

"We showed a master class, as it should have been on Feb. 24, 2022. We did not have the goal of overthrowing the existing regime and the legally elected government," he said in an 11-minute audio message released on the Telegram messaging app.

Prigozhin renewed an allegation, so far unsupported by evidence, that the Russian military had attacked a Wagner camp with missiles and then helicopters, killing about 30 of its men, and said this had been the immediate trigger for what he called a "march of justice."

Wagner stopped its advance towards Moscow at the moment when it realized that it would have to confront waiting Russian troops, and that blood would inevitably be shed, he said, reiterating an assertion he made on Saturday.

Prigozhin, a former close ally of President Vladimir Putin, stressed that Wagner had not spilt a drop of blood on the ground during its northward march, but regretted that his fighters had had to kill Russian servicemen who attacked their convoy from helicopters.

He also once more complained about a military order that all volunteer units including Wagner are meant to sign by July 1 placing themselves under the control of Russia's Defence Ministry.

Fewer than 2% of Wagner's men have signed up, Prigozhin added.

"The aim of the march was to avoid the destruction of Wagner," he said.

In the recording, Prigozhin did not address any of the questions still surrounding the agreement brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that brought the mutiny to an end.

The Kremlin said on Saturday that the deal had included dropping a criminal case against Prigozhin and his moving to Belarus.

Prigozhin, who was last seen in public being driven in a sport utility vehicle out of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday evening, did not say where he was when he recorded his statement.

Putin thanks Wagner fighters who helped avoid bloodshed, offers Belarus exit to others

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday made a statement to the nation about Saturday's aborted armed mutiny in which he thanked Wagner mercenary fighters and commanders who had stood down to avoid bloodshed.

Putin said he would honour his promise to allow Wagner fighters to relocate to Belarus if they wanted or to sign a contract with the Defence Ministry or simply return to their families.

He made no mention of mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the mutiny.

Putin meets the security service head, defence minister, and other top officials at Kremlin

Putin was meeting the head of Russia's main domestic security service on Monday evening, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and other ministers, footage provided by the Kremlin press service showed.

The participants included Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, head of the Kremlin Administration Anton Vaino, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Director of the FSB security service Alexander Bortnikov, head of the National Guard Viktor Zolotov, head of the Federal Protection Service Dmitry Kochnev, and the head of the federal Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin.

Reuters