News.
Russian
authorities are
telling vulgar fighters
not to follow their leader,
Evgeny Prigozhin,
and also to take measures to detain him.
That coming
as the infamous head
of the private Wagner
Russian mercenary army
is making a stunning claim tonight,
accusing Russia's military
leadership of killing
a, quote,
huge amount of his Wagner
forces in a strike.
That is a claim that Russia denies.
We have CNN's Ben
Wedeman on the ground in Ukraine
and our Oren
Liebermann monitoring
at the Pentagon Ben,
I want to go to you first.
What can you tell us about this
claim from Prigozhin
and how Moscow is responding tonight?
Well, actually, Alex, that's
just one of many claims made by Prigozhin
today
that's clearly going
to get him in trouble.
He started the day with a video interview
in which he claimed
that Russia had no pretext
for invading Ukraine last year.
Then he went on to make this claim
that the Russian military leadership,
without specifying who
or what exactly attacked Wagner
base, killing dozens of his mercenaries.
Now, it's not clear where that base is.
Some video is circulating
in social media of that base.
The Russian Defense
Ministry has said
that this is simply not true.
The Russian media, Russian state media
is saying that President Putin
is being kept aware
of these claims by Wagner
and the situation in general.
And that, quote,
all necessary measures are being taken.
Now, Prigozhin went on to say
that the evil being carried out
by the Russian military leadership
must be stopped.
Now, many people are taking this
as a call for a coup although Prigozhin
went out, came out later and denied it.
Now, as a result of this obvious
shock of instability in Russia,
there are reports on social media
that military vehicles
have been seen outside
the State
Duma and Moscow,
as well as in the city of Rostov.
Russian city to the east of here.
Now, in reaction to Prigozhin
statements, the FSB,
the Russian Federal Security Service,
has announced
that it has begun
criminal proceedings against Prigozhin
for organizing armed
and armed insurrection.
And this is according to the statement
from the SS FSB.
Punishable by 12 to 20 years in prison.
Now, the Ukrainians
are obviously watching this
with intense interest.
Now,
we did see a tweet from
the Ukrainian Defense Ministry
simply saying we are watching
Alex, there
certainly is an earthquake
in Russia's war in Ukraine.
Ben Wedeman, thank you very much.
We have new reporting now on the U.S.
reaction to this showdown
between Russia and the Volgograd
mercenary group.
Here's our Pentagon
correspondent, Oren Liebermann.
Oren, what are you being told?
Alec, certainly
after Ben
laid it all out
like that, the friction
we're seeing between Prigozhin
and the Russian military leadership,
it's easy to see why US officials
are watching this so closely
and are tracking this so closely
to see how this develops.
The US has watched
and we have watched friction
between the two in the past,
threats coming from Prigozhin aimed
either at the Russian military
or its leadership
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu
or the Chief of General Staff,
Valery Gerasimov.
But one U.S.
official tells us there is a sense here
that this goes above and beyond that
this isn't the usual rhetoric.
There is something different here.
There is something
perhaps more escalatory here.
And that's one of the reasons
the US is watching this so closely
to see how this develops
over the course of the next several hours
and days.
It's also worth
pointing out
that Prigozhin has normally attacked
Russian military leadership
following some Ukrainian
battlefield success
or breakthrough or tactical success.
And it doesn't appear
to be the case here.
There doesn't appear to have been
some sort
of Ukrainian success
that that precipitated
these sudden threats by Prigozhin.
And yet we have seen this friction
with what appears to be
an increasing frequency.
In fact,
just early last week,
Russia's Ministry of Defense
said that private contractors,
military contractors,
would have to sign contracts
to try to bring them in line
with Russian military leadership
and the Russian military itself.
And it was Prigozhin
who said that
Wagner would not be doing that.
And so you see that
leading into this friction here
as the U.S. watches this, Alex. The U.S.
and certainly the rest of Netto
are going to be watching
this very very closely.
Oren Liebermann at the Pentagon,
thanks very much.
Let's get more
now with our military and Russia experts,
Colonel Cedric
Leighton and Dmitri Alperovitch.
Thank you both for joining me.
Dmitri, I want to go to you first.
You say that Prigozhin
massively overreached.
You're comparing this to gang warfare.
This is very different
than what Prigozhin has said before.
It is an escalation.
What do you think is behind it?
Well, what
percussion has been doing it for months
now is criticize.
And, of course,
the Ministry of Defense Minister
Shoigu, Google
chief of General Staff
Gerasimov for being incompetent,
trying to draw distinction
between his own capable
Wagner forces
that were able to take back mud
by destroying it,
and the Russian military
that has been suffering loss after loss.
But what he couldn't do.
And the big mistake that he made today
is to go after the pretext for this war.
When you announced that this war
was launched under false pretenses.
He blamed Shoigu for it.
But everyone knows
that Putin is the one
that ultimately made the decision.
And thus he gave the opening to
for Shoigu and others
that have hated him for a long time.
In the Kremlin apparatus,
as well as in the FSB to go after him.
And Colonel Leighton,
as Dimitri noted there,
this is a few
that has been brewing for quite
some time.
Production has been lobbying
those bombs for four months.
But how do you assess this claim
that production
made, that Russian forces,
the Russian military, actually targeted
and killed many Wagner mercenaries
as production claimed?
Yeah, Alex,
that's a very
inflammatory claim under almost
any condition that you can imagine.
So you know what?
Prigozhin seems to be doing here
is upping the ante.
He's basically saying
this, you know, this this area has gone
way beyond what I've intended.
It's gone way beyond
what the Russian state should be doing.
And the Russian state
has killed its own people.
So that is a very significant
I think, departure from the messages
that we've seen from Prigozhin before.
It's much more virulent
and much more a part of a campaign
that seems to be
designed to topple
the Ministry of Defense,
at the very least,
possibly Putin himself.
I don't think it will be successful.
So, Colonel,
what are you going to be watching for
now as the FSB is calling on foreign
fighters to detain Prigozhin
Well, I'm going to be watching
for exactly that, Alex.
Whether or not
the BAUCHNER forces
remain loyal to Prigozhin
or whether they switch allegiance
to Putin and and Shoigu.
We've had
generals come up on social media
that have urged
the Wagner Group to actually disband
and to actually
detain, as you mentioned, Prigozhin.
We've also had
other members call for a calm
in this situation.
And, of course,
the broadcasts on state television
have been,
I think, a very significant departure
from what we normally seen
when it comes to these kinds of spats.
We'll be watching for
these kinds of tensions to unfold
and whether or not Prigozhin
is a free man.
Dimitri, same question to you.
What do you expect the next moves to be
Well, what
you're seeing
right now is armored vehicles
being deployed
on the streets of Moscow
for the first time since the early 1990s.
Out of fear, of course,
that Wagner may have supporters
that may help them orchestrate a coup.
So Putin
does not want to take any chances.
He's deploying
not just the FSB
and the Russian military,
but the Guardian
the National Guard, effectively
his pretorian guard,
hundreds of thousands of men
that have armor
that are very loyal to him.
So he's got the overwhelming
advantage here.
I don't expect that Prigozhin and Wagner
would be successful here.
I don't even expect
that they would survive the weekend
or at least remain free, man.
But it's certainly interesting
that Putin is very concerned,
perhaps for the first time
in his presidency,
about a potential for a coup.
Dmitri,
have you seen fractures within Wagner?
Would you expect Wagner fighters
to heed that call to arrest Prigozhin
I'm not sure if they
would arrest him,
but certainly
if you're a Wagner personnel right now,
the last thing you want to do
is either be killed
by the Russian military
and the Russian Guardia
or be arrested
and then potentially be sent again
to fight in Ukraine.
Now is a conflict yet again.
So not a lot of good choices for them.
Most of them,
I would expect,
would probably try to disappear
and try to get home.
Colonel Leighton, do you agree with
with Dmitri
that precautions life is now at risk
Absolutely, Alex.
I think Dimitri's spot on in this
in this case,
because what you're looking at
is not only a power play,
but it seems to be a power
play done by someone
who is not quite ready
in terms of the forces
that he has at his disposal
to actually mount
a coup or other,
you know,
other type of action of that type
So I don't think he'll be successful
and I think
that his demise may be coming up
very shortly.
And Dmitri, in terms of what could happen
in the coming weeks,
and days, we're in the middle
of this counteroffensive.
Putin has acknowledged challenges
during this period.
Do you think that these developments
make it more difficult
for Putin to
to spin the realities
of how his forces are doing on
the ground?
I don't think so.
I think he can present this as a rogue
paramilitary, a contractor, Prigozhin,
that is trying to actually
not even orchestrate
a coup against Putin.
He's been very careful
to promote his support of Putin.
He's saying
that he wants to clean the
Russian military
and the general staff of the traitors
that he caught,
as he calls them, that
that are just destroying
the Russian military in Ukraine.
And he doesn't necessarily
want to stop the war.
He just thinks that he can prosecute
it better.
But look, Alex, the way you orchestrate
successful coups
is not by announcing them far in advance,
especially against the state
that controls
the military, controls
the security services,
has enormous firepower.
You try to do it quietly
and then announce
that you've been successful.
So Prigozhin is doing this
completely backwards,
and that's why he's very likely to fail.
All right.
Well, thank you
both for joining me to break down
these stunning development
Colonel Cedric Leighton,
Dmitri Alperovitch, thanks to you both.