Contrarian take on the Wagner Putsch - with Richard Fontaine
b"Last weekend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, launched a rebellion, coup or putsch against Moscow. It's still hard to discern what it was. As of now, It seems Prigozhin has halted the Wagner operation. The situation is fluid, and we aren\\u2019t going to leap to conclusions on this podcast. But our guest today, Richard Fontaine, told me he is skeptical that these events so far reflect real cracks in President Putin\\u2019s rule. \\n\\nSo I asked Richard to hop on our podcast to unpack where he think events are headed. \\n\\nRichard is the CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), bi-partisan foreign policy think tank in Washington, DC. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He serves on the Biden administration\\u2019s Defense Policy Board \\u2013 which advises the Pentagon."