Let's bring in retired U.S.
Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt.
He's the former
assistant secretary of state
for political and military affairs
under President George W Bush.
All right.
General Vladimir Putin
is not known for putting up with a lot,
especially someone
as belligerent as Prigozhin.
So why is he tolerating this?
Well, I think you've got to go back
to the fall of the Soviet Union.
The time between Yeltsin and Putin.
During that time,
the country was the wild, wild West.
And that was the rise of the oligarchs
as they
tried to privatize the entire industries.
Industrial base
inside of Russian production
was one of those
that took advantage of this
Prigozhin is a former hotdog
salesman from Leningrad.
But he,
like so many of the other oligarchs,
made billions of dollars.
And candidly, when Putin came to power,
there's this reciprocal relationship
between the oligarchs and Putin.
And Prigozhin is one of them.
But why does
he continue to put up with it now?
Well, first of all, he is in the debt
to Prigozhin,
but look, let's
we've seen this in America.
We've seen the rise of a nationalist
right wing
person who's appealing to the people
on the ground
in many ways,
he shares the same characteristics
as Trump.
Very, very belligerent, very, very loud,
goes directly to the people I think Putin
no one gets a lot out of Prigozhin
by his mercenary army
that's doing far, far
better than the Russian military.
And number two,
I think Putin sees him
as a potential political candidate
against him in the near future.
And that goes to the old saying,
keep your friends close
and keep your enemies closer.
That's a good explanation.
Ukraine's president Zelensky,
of course, saying
his forces are ready to begin
their counteroffensive.
Have I want to take you to have a listen
to what U.S.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan
told our colleague Fareed
Zakaria just a short time ago.
Jake, when you think
about the Ukrainian counteroffensive,
what are you looking forward to
to see that, in fact,
the massive investments
the United States
has made in helping
Ukraine are paying off?
Well, first, this is not at an exam.
We're not grading Ukraine's
counteroffensive and saying,
you know,
you did
well based on what we gave
you, you did poorly.
What we want to do
is support Ukraine
to make as much progress
as possible on the battlefield.
So that it is in the strongest
possible position
at the negotiating table.
And we do believe that
this counteroffensive
will allow Ukraine
to take strategically
significant territory back
from Russia, areas
occupied by Russia
that are rightfully sovereign
Ukrainian territory.
So does Ukraine have
enough support from the U.S.
and other allies
to succeed in a counteroffensive?
Well, listen, Paula,
in a bit of self-promotion.
I wrote about this
a month ago in The Wall Street Journal.
They need to accomplish
certain milestones
in this counteroffensive
to maintain the support
of the United States
and the Western nations.
They need to decisively defeat
the Russians.
Jake talked about that,
about making significant progress.
They've got to
reach objectives that prepare them
for further counter-offensive.
So this will not be the last.
They need to cut the Crimea corridor.
They need to decisively defeat
the Russians
so that the Russians understand
that can't win this war.
And they need to accomplish enough
to keep the West onside
and not seeing this as just more
examples of trench warfare.
So what
are they waiting for?
Listen, there's always a tension
between the politicians and the military.
The politicians
always want this to start early.
The military knows that every day
they the way the counter offensive,
they get stronger,
they get more supplies,
they get more intelligence on the ground.
And that tension,
I think, is
what you're seeing playing out
between the politicians
and the commanders.
The commanders say,
no, I need a couple more days
to get ready.
The politicians say
we got to get this thing going.
So I think Stilinski and his generals
are trying to work this out
in terms of timelines.
And we've seen how Russian strikes
have been aimed at Kiev
pretty much every day. For the last week.
Is Russia trying to wear down Ukraine's
air defenses?
No, I
think they're trying to wear down
the Ukrainian people.
This is what's called a spoiling attack
on the part of Russia.
They know a counteroffensive is coming.
So they know
they can't stop the military.
So they continue
to pound the civilian ends
so that those civilians
are the ones that say, look, let's end
this thing quickly.
Let's get this over with.
We can't take these kind of bombings.
But I think the Ukrainian people
have demonstrated
like the British people
during the blitz of 1940
that they're willing
to stand behind their military
and take the attack on civilian targets.
So that the military can actually conduct
the offensive when and how is necessary.
General Mark Kimmitt, thank you.