Riveting new video
into OUTFRONT from the front lines
in Ukraine where there is a fierce
fight underway nearby.
The gunfire
just unrelenting as Ukrainian forces
try to push through the multilayered
Russian defenses,
making their way across ground
littered with landmines.
Despite this,
Ukraine says it is making real progress
now in the area.
That intense fighting coming
as Russia continues to launch
missiles deep into the city of De Dnipro.
You can see the smoke billowing
from a residential high rise residential.
Keep in mind.
And a building
that houses Ukraine's security services
well in flames.
As the fighting intensifies, Vladimir
Putin is trying to shore up
alliances wherever he can.
Cozying up now
with the North Koreans
as well as African leaders.
Nic Robertson is OUTFRONT
Vladimir
Putin is looking for friends
fewer than he hoped,
showed up for his grandiose Petersberg
Africa conference,
simultaneously sending
Sergei Shoigu, his defense minister.
Thousands of miles to North Korea
cozying up to nuclear armed Kim Jong un.
Pictures of Putin plastered on the walls
Quite the reception for the Russians
and this.
Kim showing
off his latest intercontinental
ballistic missile.
The Hawassa on 18.
Putin telling kim in a letter
north korea has firm support
against Ukraine
and its solidarity with Russia.
Highlight our common interests
to counter the policy of the west.
You don't do so much Putin propaganda
in Pyongyang
shows Kim
desperate
for foreign friends to
their common ground.
Anger at America.
We saw in Saint Petersburg
where only 17 heads of state showed up.
Less than half of those who came
for the 2019 pre Ukraine invasion.
Africa conference
Putin's pitch.
The U.S. and Europe are bad.
Russia is your friend
as South Africa and indeed as Africa.
We are greatly encouraged by
the Russian Federation its commitment
to deepening collaboration
with the nations of Africa.
South Africa's
president, Cyril Ramaphosa,
whose ailing
political party denies
indirect Kremlin cash support
vocal for Putin.
And as all this happens,
a military coup in Niger.
Russia apparently ready to move in
and replace the U.S.
counterterrorism forces
magnet mercenary boss
Prigozhin
Putin's one time Africa enforcer,
telling Nigerians throw the West out
in Africa, in North Korea.
Putin trying to carve out a new axis,
a world order aligned behind him.
Against the West.
The cold reality there, Jim, for Putin
is that his roadmap only prospers
when he makes the West look bad.
But the trouble for the West is fighting
Putin's false
accounting of everything from the war
in Ukraine
to the cost of food
and fuel in African countries.
It's nearly a full time prospect
that's made so much harder
because Putin actually has leverage
over some of those countries. Jim,
OUTFRONT now, Mikhail Ziegler.
He is a Russian journalist who knows
the Kremlin and Putin's inner circle.
Really better than most.
Thanks so much.
He's also the author of War
and Punishment, a new book
about Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
I wonder, Mikhail,
we do know
there's been some reporting in the past
about Russia
buying weapons
and ammunition
from North Korea for its war in Ukraine.
What does it say about Russia's Russia's
current position in the world
that it's reaching out
to really the world's
biggest pariah state?
One might say,
you know, that
that has been Buddha's
strategy for several years.
He's trying to become
the leader
of the global anti-Americanism.
So, yes, he he understands that he has no
no way to to find the peace.
His own popularity
in the global south in Africa.
So he's trying to play that card
as the leader of anti-American world.
And some sometimes it seems that he's
he's rather successful in that.
So at least
all the speeches that could be heard
during the Africa
Russia summit in some places broke.
They were not they were mostly
against America or against the Western
values.
And Putin was trying to aim
to prove that he is the real fighter
against the West and the United States.
Notably, of course, North Korea,
very close to China as well.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader,
of course, of the Viognier
group, resurfaced
in, of all places,
Saint Petersburg,
same city, same event as Vladimir Putin
just a month
after he attempted a coup against Putin.
Tell us what you've learned
about where Prigozhin has been
and what he's been up to,
what his position is in Russia today.
Yeah, according to my sources, he he
he has been noticed so several times in
in in Cyprus,
Brooke, that happens to be his hometown.
So so probably
he didn't
spend all of that month in in Belarus.
He spent most of time in Cyprus, Brooke.
He was trying to be visible.
And he even met Vladimir Putin
about a month ago in the Kremlin.
So, obviously,
according to my sources,
but it does not consider himself
as a traitor
because
Prigozhin was not trying to topple
Vladimir Putin.
He was trying to become number two.
He was trying
to organize
an uprising against minister of Defense
Sergei Shoigu,
but he did not betray Putin personally.
And that's why he
he lost most of his influence.
But he was still
he is still not eliminated.
And even Putin
let him to remain in his own city.
Well, remarkable.
Because Putin did use that word
traitor during. Yes.
In the midst of the coup.
Mikhail Ziegler, thanks so much
for joining us tonight.