Recent Russia turmoil challenging Vladimir Putin ‘unsettling’ for China leaders: senior US official

Comment made by Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific adviser during talk on trilateral security pact Aukus aimed at checking Beijing’s growing footprint in region

Potential partners to US-Britain-Australia alliance, like France, New Zealand and South Korea, would need to bring significant value, he adds

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Members of the Wagner paramilitary group sit atop a tank on a street in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday. The challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin has rattled China, a close ally. Photo: AFP via Getty Images/TNS

Published: 6:03am, 27 Jun 2023Updated: 6:18am, 27 Jun 2023

Beijing has been rattled by the power play in Russia over the weekend, a senior US official said on Monday. His observation without elaboration came during a panel discussion about Aukus, the trilateral security pact announced by Australia, the US and Britain in 2021 aimed at checking China’s growing footprint in the Indo-Pacific.

“I think it would be fair to say that recent developments in Russia had been unsettling to the Chinese leadership,” said Kurt Campbell, the US’s national security coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs. “And I think I’ll just leave it at that.”

Late last week, Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner paramilitary group and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, boldly challenged the Russian defence ministry, accusing it of trying to kill his forces as he threatened to march on Moscow.

The crisis was defused Saturday when Russian authorities dropped a criminal case against Prigozhin, who agreed to leave Russia for Belarus and see his forces join the Russian military. Analysts characterised the stand-off as the most serious threat to Putin’s authority in decades.

Separately on Monday, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby declined to comment on any potential change in China’s and President Xi Jinping’s stance towards Putin following events in recent days.