Turning now to Russia's war on Ukraine.
And Ukrainian officials say its
troops are advancing
in a counteroffensive
on the southern front lines.
So Ukraine is trying to advance
to the Sea of Azov.
They hope to cut the land bridge
between Crimea
and the occupied eastern Donetsk region.
Even some pro-Kremlin
military bloggers
are conceding
that Russian troops are under intense
pressure.
Meantime, Russian investigator
have also recovered ten bodies
and the flight data recorders
from that plane crash
that is believed to have killed
Volker boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin offered his condolence
says two precautions family.
But the Kremlin
still vehemently denies
any involvement in the crash.
CNN's Sara Abdel
Aziz joining us now from London.
With the very latest.
Hi, Salma.
Hello.
We don't have a timeline yet,
Marlon Amaro, on
how long this forensic
analysis, DNA
analysis will take
by Russian investigators.
But what we do know is, as you mentioned,
ten bodies
recovered from the scene
as well as the flight recorder data.
So you can expect right now
that that's being looked
at by this government backed body.
And it comes
just days
after or just shortly
after, rather, President Putin
broke his silence on this plane crash.
Speaking of Prigozhin, in the past tense,
describing him as a talented man
who made serious mistakes.
Look, very few
who are supporters of Prigozhin
in the Western Intelligence Agency,
even President Biden himself
are surprised
that Prigozhin may
very well have met this fate.
In fact,
the only thing that was surprising
was that for two months,
he seemed to be a dead
man, walking,
posing the most serious threat
to President
Putin's rule in nearly two decades.
Now, the question is, can
these Russian
investigators carry out an independent
analysis without meddling?
You have to remember,
of course, this plane crash took place
on Russian territory.
These investigators are government
backed, four
Western intelligence agencies
for supporters of Prigozhin.
That's going to put
a lot of question marks
as to whether or not
this is truly an independent body.
Now, the Kremlin has, of course, denied,
denied denied
any involvement
in this crash,
calling any finger
pointing absolute lies.
But, of course,
over the course of the last several years
from here
in England,
in the Salisbury
poisonings to Alexei Navalny,
we've seen Kremlin critics
meet very mysterious
fates from poisonings
to falling off balconies.
That means we're very unlikely
to get true
independent and transparent answers
as to what happened.
Some, you know,
you say that it wasn't necessarily
a surprise that you have to
Yevgeny Prigozhin
would ultimately meet his death
in this way two months after that mutiny.
What do we know about what Prigozhin knew
or thought
about any threats to his life and your
reporting there?
Look, you can absolutely
assume
that Prigozhin was worried for his life,
to say the least.
He was someone who was openly criticizing
members of President Putin's government
all the way
up to the minister of defense
and was doing it very openly,
of course, on social media.
In fact,
one of the people who warned Prigozhin
about possible death threats,
apparently twice, is a close Putin ally,
Alexander Lukashenko,
the president of Belarus,
who said he had time and time again
warned Prigozhin
and that at one point
Prigozhin responded to Lukashenko
by saying, Well, then I'll die.
Forget about it.
This very bombastic response.
Now, Lukashenko, in that interview
went on to say
that he does not believe
President Putin
is behind this, but absolutely
this was a man
who believed feared
that he could be killed for speaking out.
And we know he certainly kept
a low profile after that failed mutiny,
with the exception of that forum
in Saint Petersburg.
Tom Abdelaziz live for us in London.
Salma, thank you.
All right.
Let's talk
more about this deadly crash promotion
and what this means for the future
with CNN global affairs
analyst Kimberly Dozier.
Good morning to you, Kimberly.
So, you know,
obviously, these denials
from the Kremlin rings hollow
to anyone inside and outside Russia.
Who knows what exactly happens to
critics of Putin, the Kremlin
This is all part of the playbook.
And I guess there really is no advantage.
I think that's
what you've said
for Putin to even come out and say, yes,
I did it.
If he if he indeed was behind it,
yeah.
This is the Putin playbook
to deny, deny, deny.
Remember?
Putin denied
that they were going to invade Ukraine
until Russian troops
were actually inside the country.
By keeping several different stories
out there, by keeping people guessing,
he keeps his adversaries off balance
and the message still gets through.
This was a man promotion.
Who is his influence came from
his positioning with his closeness
to Putin.
And once he defended the man,
he, in a sense, lost protection.
We may never know who ordered this.
Was it
Putin himself
or was it
someone in the upper ranks of power
who wanted to make a move
to take over Bognor
or who simply wanted
to possibly curry favor
with the boss
by taking out someone who's embarrassed
on the world stage,
either Thing is, makes a lot of sense.
The ultimate result is that
the top leadership of the Berkner
Group was on that plane
with the exception
of the executive director
who hadn't taken part in the coup.
So you've sliced off
the ideological people
who were a challenge
towards Putin
and mother Russia and the war in Ukraine,
and you've left intact
the bargaining structure,
which has been very useful
to the Russian government.
In places like Africa,
operating as a de facto arm of the state.
Let me jump in there,
though, Kimberly,
because that is
I mean, it's surprising to me, really.
I mean, you have forgotten
who wasn't born yesterday.
He's on the same flight
as two of his top lieutenants
who apparently were part of this
attempted mutiny.
I mean, do you
do you really think that Prigozhin
felt like he was out of
the woods,
that he would get on a flight like this
with his top two lieutenants
and I guess break security protocol
Well, you have to
look at the relationship,
at least as far as any of us
could tell, what it was between
the ocean and Putin.
And it seemed it seemed like,
you know, very close friends.
We're talking sort of mafia territory.
And so the ocean had to make a call
when he looked into Putin's eyes
when they had that meeting
after their small insurrection
and decided apparently that it was safe
to continue in his orbit
and he could have altered his behavior.
He could have stayed in Africa.
He could have also,
as you mentioned,
he popped up in Petersburg,
St Petersburg,
at an event that he was at.
And he also had started
churning out some videos
on the Blogger
Network again, from this to Africa.
He might not have understood
that he needed to keep a low profile,
show more shame
and perhaps hide in Belarus.
He kept spending a lot of time in Russia.
We don't know if that offended
Putin's ego
or if it gave one of the Russian military
commanders around him
an opportunity
to take out
no promotion
at the criticizing them for months.
He was an embarrassment and a threat
to a lot of the other people
around the top level of power.
And so they made a power move again.
I think even if the US
or British intelligence figured it out.
You're not going to share it with us
because it's business as usual
and a top
critic is gone
and the Russian war against
Ukraine continues.
So 15 seconds
because you mentioned, you know,
just it's involving
the group's influence in Africa, Syria
and other places as well.
What happens next of the volunteer group?
Because there's thousands of mercenaries
now, some of them stranded around
the globe.
Does Putin absorb them
into the Russian armed forces or what?
What happens?
I think he goes
back to the preproduction model of
small groups, not a monolithic entity
like Bognor
that could rise to threaten his power
or the Russian state as production did.
There will never be another partner
like it was.
It's going to be entities
that they can play off each other
that won't stage another.