KT McFarland to Newsmax: Putin ‘Stronger’ After Failed Coup

Former Deputy National Security Advisor KT McFarland told Newsmax that Russian President Vladimir Putin has emerged “stronger” after a failed coup attempt by the mercenary Wagner Group and its late leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed with nine others in a private plane crash north of Moscow on Aug. 23.

“Vladimir Putin has, with the assassination now of the failed coup leader Prigozhin, really sent a clear message to anybody who might want to try to threaten Putin in the future. ‘You come after me. I get you, I get rid of you,’ ” McFarland said during “Newsline” on Thursday. “There also are other several sorts of second-tier firings and dismissals that have happened in the last month, Prigozhin wasn’t acting alone. Maybe he thought he had some people who might join him in the Kremlin’s inner circle. Well, those guys are disappearing, too.”

She said that Putin has “flipped the script” on those who thought he might have been vulnerable due to the war in Ukraine and is now solidifying his power and demanding the loyalty of Wagner soldiers to Russia.

“Prigozhin had to recruit these guys from the prisons, and they were loyal to him. Prigozhin is now gone, and those mercenaries have now sworn an allegiance to the Russian military,” she said. “So, in a lot of ways Putin is probably a whole lot stronger than he was two months ago. [The Wagner soldiers] had no choice but to do that. They wanted to stay alive there.”

Prigozhin, 62, was identified through DNA taken from the remains of the 10 killed in the “mysterious” crash, and he was buried during a private funeral Tuesday, ABC News reported.

His crash and death took place two months after leading a coup attempt to replace Putin on June 23.

Wagner Group forces returning from battle in Ukraine to their headquarters in the southern Russian border town of Rostov-on-Don turned to march to Moscow, but turned back after a half-day, the report said.

While Putin is suspected of having a role in the plane crash, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters last week that such speculation was nothing but lies.

“There has been a lot of speculation around this crash [and] the tragic deaths of the plane’s passengers, among them Yevgeny Prigozhin,” ABC reported Peskov saying. “Of course, the West presents all this speculation from a particular angle. All of that is sheer lies.”

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