Yevgeny Prigozhin exposed the "most damaging" fact about the Ukraine war for Russian President Vladimir Putin, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday.
Rice appeared on Fox News to discuss the attempted rebellion led by Prigozhin, the founder of the paramilitary Wagner Group, who turned against Russian leadership amid the stagnating war in Ukraine. Prigozhin attempted an armed rebellion over the weekend that followed months of growing tension between him and the Kremlin.
"Probably the most damaging thing about this is that Prigozhin said what has been unspoken by those who have supported the war," said Rice, who served as secretary of state from 2005 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. "That this is actually a war that did not have to take place, where hundreds of thousands of Russians did not have to die, where a million people didn't have to flee the country. That, to me, is the most damaging thing that Prigozhin has done [to Putin]."
Although the attempted rebellion lasted less than 24 hours before a deal was brokered to end the conflict and Wagner troops turned back from their path to Moscow, Rice said Prigozhin's remarks about the war in Ukraine could be troubling for Putin, who launched the Ukraine invasion on February 24, 2022, and has seen Russia struggle to make substantial gains amid Kyiv's stronger-than-expected defense effort.
Prigozhin accused the Kremlin of lying about the justifications to invade Ukraine in a 30-minute video posted to his Telegram channel. He said nothing "extraordinary" was happening in Ukraine prior to the invasion, casting doubt on Putin's accusations of Ukrainian "aggression."
"The Ministry of Defense is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there were insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side and that they were going to attack us together with the whole NATO block," Prigozhin said. "The special operation was started for a completely different reason."
Rice said Prigozhin's remarks "exploded" Putin's "myth that the Ukrainian special military operation could take place on any effect on Russia" and his claim that it was a "just and necessary war."
Although many world leaders and experts have long doubted Putin's justifications for the war—with many viewing the invasion as a blatant attempt at taking control of Ukraine to build his legacy—Prigozhin's remarks are notable in that he is a former ally of the Russian president and his troops fought alongside the Russian military in key battles throughout the war.
Javed Ali, an associate professor of practice at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, told Newsweek Monday afternoon that Prigozhin's remarks were the "most blunt and direct repudiation of President Putin's long-standing claims that Russia's 'special military operation' was justified despite the enormous military, economic, diplomatic, and now internal political costs."
"This will have a dramatic effect on popular support for the campaign with the Russian people, and may also undercut morale with Russian forces now facing a Ukrainian counteroffensive," he said.
Ali said Prigozhin will continue to "agitate against Putin" despite being exiled to Belarus, whose President Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal to prevent "bloodshed" by offering him amnesty while ending the rebellion.
"His rise as a battlefield leader and political rival to Putin has been striking, and given Putin's past history of silencing opponents by various means, it also would not be surprising for Putin to eventually turn on Prigozhin as well," he said.
Rice said the rebellion's full impact on Russian morale will be known once word of the mutiny spreads to troops and by the reaction of pro-Moscow military bloggers.
Newsweek reached out to Rice via the Hoover Institution, of which she is the director, for comment.
Rice said Putin "put this in motion" by allowing a feud between Prigozhin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and a military not controlled by the government to fight in the war. She also said she questioned whether Putin was staging the rebellion at one point.
"But you wouldn't stage something that makes you look so weak," she said. "Because, really, dictators, authoritarians rest on three principles. One is there has to be fear in the population. Secondly, you have to look invincible. Third, there can be no alternatives. This has exploded all of those for Putin."
Update 06/26/2023 6:30 p.m. ET: This story was updated with comment from Javed Ali.
