Could Donald Trump have tipped off Vladimir Putin about Wagner mutiny? President Biden says...

US President Joe Biden on Friday accepted that his administration had prior knowledge of the Wagner group rebellion against Russian President Vladimir Putin. During an interview with MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, Joe Biden claimed that the US knew about the Yevgeny Prigozhin-led rebellion “ahead of time.” The interviewer asked Joe Biden if he thinks that former President Donald Trump would have tipped off Vladimir Putin.

“Did you worry that Trump might have tipped him off, had he still been president?” Nicolle Wallace asked during the interview.

Joe Biden seemed perplexed by the question and said “Oh, God, I don't know. I don't think about that very often."

Vladimir Putin in weakened: Donald Trump

During his tenure as the President of the United States, Donald Trump developed friendly relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, something his successor didn't continue. After the Wagner group's mutiny against Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump opined that the Russian President has been "somewhat weakened" and the US should try to broker a negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine.

"You could say that he's (Putin) still there, he's still strong, but he certainly has been I would say somewhat weakened at least in the minds of a lot of people," Donald Trump told news agency Reuters.

He added that as Vladimir Putin is no longer in power "you don't know what the alternative is. It could be better, but it could be far worse," he said.

In one of the rare challenges to the authority of Vladimir Putin, the Russian mercenary group chief launched a rebellion targeting his defence administration. The mutiny was called off after the intervention of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko who also gave safe harbor to Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. After surviving a mutiny, many geopolitical experts have pointed toward the weakened authority of Vladimir Putin.