‘I’d be careful what I ate’: Biden quips about potential Prigozhin poisoning

Yevgeny Prigozhin might want to watch out for any poisoning attempts by Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Joe Biden joked during a press conference on Thursday.

“If I were he I’d be careful what I ate. I’d keep my eye on my menu,” Biden said during a joint press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö in Helsinki.

Biden was asked whether the Wagner leader’s attempted coup last month could raise new concerns about Putin taking drastic new measures in Russia’s war on Ukraine. He responded that he was not aware of Prigozhin’s whereabouts or his current relationship to Putin, and jokingly advised Prigozhin to remain on high alert for potential poisoning.

“But all kidding aside, who knows,” Biden continued. “I don’t know, I don’t think any of us know for certain what the future of Prigozhin is in Russia.”

According to Russian media reports, Prigozhin met with Putin in the Kremlin after the unsuccessful mutiny. He has not been seen in public and has been uncharacteristically quiet on social media ever since.

Putin has a history of allegations of poisoning political rivals. According to British authorities, the Russian military intelligence GRU poisoned former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in 2018 — which Russia denied. Alexei Navalny, Putin’s most prominent political rival, accused the Russian president of being behind his near-fatal poisoning in 2020, which the Kremlin also subsequently denied. This May, German police opened a probe into the alleged poisoning of two Russian opposition figures in Berlin.