Russia tonight,
breaking the nuclear arms control
treaty with the United States
for the first time
since the signing
of the transformational New START treaty.
Russia is refusing
to allow the US
to inspect its nuclear weapons.
Now, this move comes at a moment
where the world faces
a higher highest risk of nuclear conflict
since the Cold War.
And it is happening is Putin
and his military leaders
have threatened nuclear war,
although with regard
to the threat of a nuclear war.
--- you are right...
The threat is growing.
So why hide the truth?
If we don't have the resources
to defeat the Naito Block
with conventional means,
we get to work not.
But we have nuclear weapons for that.
So
there's more where that came from.
I mean, even two weeks ago,
Putin's top ally and Russia's former
president, Dmitry
Medvedev, warned quote,
The loss of a nuclear power
in a conventional war
can provoke the outbreak
of a nuclear war.
Putin's breaking
the most significant arms
treaty in modern history comes
as his back is up against the wall.
I want you to just listen to this
from Russian state media.
This is a well-known and highly
respected Russian analyst
both chancellor.
I believe
that by the start of the mobilization,
our airborne forces lost
40 to 50% of the staff,
40 to 50% just coming out
and saying that gone, dead.
And Western officials today
warn that Putin
does not have the manpower
to replace all of them
or the more than 100,000 Russians
who are estimated to have already died
on the battlefield.
And Putin's
reliance on the Wagner group to fight
is also now running,
it appears, up against its own
manpower issues.
They're now apparently
looking for prisoners
from Ukrainian prisons.
So these are Ukrainians
who have been spending months in prison
in a war zone,
now being recruited to come out
and kill Ukrainians.
For Wagner Group,
the mayor of little poll today
saying that Wagner fighters
are being sent to a little pole,
to a little pole
to look for future bargaining rights
among their prisoners.
Now, the Wagner group is trying
to turn this weakness
into a way
to mock the United States
saying that it welcomes American
fighters to the group as a press unit.
And in a statement to CNN,
they wrote this
We would like to inform you
that if American citizens
wish to join the bargaining group,
they can
then send their appeal
to the Wagner press service.
We will definitely look into it.
All right.
In a moment,
you're going to hear more
from the front lines
about the state of Putin's Wagner group,
which is so crucial to all of this,
including why the Ukrainians say
Wagner's fighters often
seem like they're on drugs.
We begin tonight with Fred
Pleitgen on the ground in Ukraine near
where some of the worst
fighting has been raging in back moot.
And Fred,
I know you've had a chance to be there
on the front line.
You've spoken to Ukrainian troops
who are fighting the brutal
Wagner soldiers.
What are they telling you?
Higher and well,
they tell us that the going
there is extremely tough
and it's extremely difficult for them
to hold the line precisely
because of what you were just saying,
because the Wagner group
has such a high rate of attrition.
They saw so many bodies
at these frontline
trenches that the Ukrainians are in.
It's really difficult
to defend these trenches.
And just when the Ukrainians
think they're done,
the next wave of Wagner fighters come.
Now, of course, the attrition rate
among those Wagner
fighters is extremely high.
Many of them get killed.
But as we know for Yevgeny
Prigozhin, the head of Wagner,
all of these people are expendable.
Now, we did manage to speak
to some Ukrainian troops
who fight Wagner
virtually every day,
who witnessed this every day.
And here's what they told us
going
underground with
Ukraine's frontline
defenders against Russia's brutal
private military company,
the Wagner Group.
Andre and Boris say they battled Wagner
stormtroopers nearly every day.
God, this is what it was like
when a handful of their troops
were attacked
by about 200 Wagner
fighters.
Who were fighting
for about 10 hours in a row.
And it wasn't like just waves.
It was uninterruptedly.
So it was just like
they didn't stop coming
Andrei says his men took out scores
of Wagner soldiers
until they themselves had to retreat.
140 of them, 80 were wounded
and 60 were killed.
And my platoon was 13 people,
plus several from infantry.
It was about 20 soldiers from our side
and
no, let's say 200 from their side.
Wagner's tactics,
he says
they try
to overwhelm
the Ukrainians
by sending waves of fighters,
many of them convicts,
recruited straight out of jail.
They make the group, let's say, from ten
soldiers is passing 30 meters.
Then they started digging in
and keeping the position.
The next group is coming next.
30 meters
they reach their position and the going
next.
30 meters also digging.
And that's
how step by step
they're trying to move forward.
The Ukrainian say Wagner fighters often
seem drugged.
The machine gunner
was almost getting crazy
because he was shooting at them.
And he said,
I know I shot him, but he doesn't fall.
And then after some time when he maybe
bleeds it out already.
So he just only falls down.
It looks like it's very, very likely
that they are getting some drugs
before attack.
The unit provided us with a recording
they say is of André
questioning a captured Wagner fighter.
He got the phone off of the nozzle
that was spheroids
inside their glass.
So there's more to cover.
There's lots of
pressure to caution us
Yes.
We reached out to Wagner's boss, Yevgeny
Prigozhin, about allegations of abuse
in their ranks.
This was his answer on Wagner's
social media account.
Dear CNN, he writes.
Do you really think that we will discuss
our military issues with you
while you are an open enemy?
It's the same as discussing
military matters
and sharing information with the CIA.
Andre says no matter
how many more fighters
Prigozhin throws at them,
they will resist
This is the war for freedom.
It's a war for democracy.
Yes, it's not even for me.
It's not even the war between
Ukraine and Russia.
Well, this is a war between a regime
and, uh, democracy.
So some pretty strong words there, Erin.
And certainly
one of the things that we did get from
those soldiers
is that the morale is still pretty high.
And they say that they're themselves
are pretty surprised
at how
well they are actually still be able
to hold the line,
despite the fact that the Russians
are throwing so many bodies
at all of this.
And right now,
for them,
it's getting even more difficult
because of course,
we know that Yevgeny Prigozhin,
the Ukrainians say,
really wants to give Vladimir Putin
a win there in Bermuda.
However, the Russian military
also wants to give Vladimir Putin a win.
That's
why there's many
Russian regular military
units out there as well right now.
So the Ukrainians really fighting
two very, very strong forces in that area
and trying to hold on Erin.
Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much.
Incredible reporting there,
hearing that soldier.
I want to go now to Crystal
Groves of the executive director and lead
Russia investigator for Bellingcat
His work was the core of the Oscar
nominated documentary Navalny,
where you can watch
Christo tracked down
Putin's man
who poisoned the Russian opposition
leader, Alexei Navalny.
Christo also recently was put on
Russia's most wanted list.
And so I want to start with Fred's
reporting on the partner group.
There's a lot there.
Let's start
with what we heard that soldiers
saying to Fred, talking about
Wagner prisoners
and prisoners and fighters,
many of whom are prisoners. Right.
Fighting in March
and appearing to be on drugs.
Well,
we have to be careful with statements
like this.
Because it's kind of the oldest
trope in warfare
that people assume
that the other side is on drugs.
We've heard this back
in the Second World War.
We fought back to
the beginning of the war
when the Russians were accusing
the brave
Ukrainians of being on drugs,
because otherwise
they can't be so brave in advance so,
so quickly.
So I don't know that that is a fact.
But could it be a fact?
I would say yes,
because Prigozhin has an obsession
with chemical weapons, with poisons.
He actually
his phone
number is in the coal
records of the lead jeer
you military intelligence
poison doctor of the of the Russian army.
They exchange information.
There have been
previous allegations
that precautions has poisoned
journalists as well.
And we know that this unit
that he communicates
with actually does develop
advanced medications,
let's call it this way
for pain relief of soldiers
and any of these could have side effects
or the main effect of actually
putting a soldier
in a sort of a drowsy state. Right.
So when you say whether it's true or not,
certainly there's enough data points
to indicate it certainly could be
and all of that.
So when you hear Fred,
also talking about
these waves of fighters,
the soldier talks about 200 of Wagner
to about 20 Ukrainians.
So we hear about those
overwhelming numbers.
At the same time, we're hearing that
he's running out of soldiers.
Wagner, he's having trouble recruiting,
trying to find
maybe even Ukrainian prisoners.
How stable is promotions power right now?
Well, what we're seeing
is a competitive market.
We have the army competing
against promotion
because it could be competing
against the army
that's both a political competition
because Prigozhin
wants to get a political role.
We've discussed this on this show,
and he's slowly progressing to actually
being recognized as a political
almost a sovereign entity within Russia.
One example of this
is that only yesterday
the Russian Ministry of Defense
finally promised
that it will start
providing heavy equipment
to so-called volunteer units.
And he's he's not
the PMC is a volunteer unit.
So they're recognizing
this is one of one of them.
So he's achieving that.
And therefore,
I can say that
the Ministry of Defense
is losing in this political battle.