CIA director says mutiny shows 'corrosive effect' of Putin's war
CIA Director Bill Burns said Yevgeny Prigozhin's mutiny showed the "corrosive effect" of President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine during remarks in England on Saturday.
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"It is striking that Prigozhin preceded his actions with a scathing indictment of the Kremlin’s mendacious rationale for its invasion of Ukraine, and of the Russian military leadership’s conduct of the war," Burns said during a lecture to Britain's Ditchley Foundation. "The impact of those words and those actions will play out for some time, a vivid reminder of the corrosive effect of Putin’s war on his own society and his own regime."
Burns, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008, also noted how Russian disaffection will gnaw away at the Kremlin and that the CIA is taking this opportunity to step up its recruitment efforts in Russia.
"Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership, beneath the steady diet of state propaganda and practiced repression," Burns said. "That disaffection creates a once-in-a generation opportunity for us at CIA, at our core a human intelligence service. We're not letting it go to waste."
-ABC News' Cindy Smith