In Ukraine, the
Russian mercenary group
fighting in Bakhmut
might not be leaving the battle
after all.
Last week,
the head of the group
said his fighters were dying
because ammunitions
supplies from Moscow were drying up
and he would be pulling his remaining
forces
from what has been
one of the bloodiest battles in the war.
CNN's Sam Kiley has more
In the ongoing macabre soap
opera
that is the Russian saga in the battle
for Obama.
The latest part of this drama is that
Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner
private military company,
as he likes to call himself
the most mercenary organization,
has gone back on his threat
to withdraw his troops from the city.
On May the 10th and hand over to Chechens
under the command of Kadyrov.
And that is because he is saying
he needs
now being promised the ammunition
that up until now
he was claiming
that the Russian Ministry of Defense
had been denying him now.
All of this is part of a mysterious,
ongoing spat that he has
with the Ministry of Defense
inside Russia.
He's frequently
complaining and very publicly critical
of the leadership
of the Russian generals.
He's recently recruited
former Russian generals.
But I think that really
this is something of a distraction
because as far as the Ukrainians
are concerned,
they've been delighted
if the group had left
and had to be replaced
because it would have left
a period of vulnerability
in that very bloody fight
for a town
that the Ukrainians say
they're happy to kill Russians in.
But as far as they're concerned,
it doesn't really have any strategic
interest or advantage
unlike their preparations
for what they say
is a planned summer offensive.
All eyes are on the Ukrainians
to see where
and how this offensive may begin.
There's a lot of
speculation that it might get underway
in the south, perhaps
with the attempt at liberating
the zapper is a nuclear
power plant there.
There have been reports
from the Russian side of the Russian
held areas of Ukraine
of mass
evacuations, of looted
goods, of civilians
and indeed of some
military elements,
particularly from the city of Melita Paul
appearing on social media
and being claimed by elements
within the Ukrainian administration.
Now, that would be a sign
that the Russians
are expecting something.
All right, Sam Kiley, thank you so much.
Let's bring in now Bill Browder.
He is the CEO of Hermitage
Capital Management,
and he's also
the author of two books,
Red Notice and more recently,
Freezing Order.
They are based on his experiences
in Russia
and becoming a target of Vladimir
Putin himself. Bill, good to see you.
So what do you think
is happening here
between Vladimir Putin
and the head of this mercenary group?
Well, I don't think anything is happening
between Putin
and the head of the mercenary group.
Putin
has always managed
the people under him with
with these types of conflicts.
They're always
sort of going at it with each other.
So the mercenary group,
head Prigozhin,
is fighting
with the minister of defense
and various other officials there.
But Putin is sort of the
puppet master who kind of has them weaken
each other, strengthen
each other and all sorts of other things.
That the most important thing
you need to understand here is that
whoever is
we shouldn't believe a word
these people are saying.
But but the one thing we can say for sure
is, is that
there is a problem inside of of the
the Russians
effective military offensive.
And it's not working out.
They're losing
thousands, tens of thousands of soldiers.
And and this is before the Ukrainians
have really gotten to work
with their counteroffensive.
When you said you
shouldn't believe a word.
That was going to be my next question.
Which is,
you know,
should we believe
the head of the volunteer group
that it was so desperate
that they were willing to pull out?
Might that be sort of a PR stunt,
just a performance
in Vladimir
Putin possibly on board with it?
I mean, who knows?
I mean, these people play so many,
you know, games and counter
games and tricks and so on so forth that,
you know, it's really
almost not worth
analyzing what they're saying.
I know for sure
that Prigozhin has lied
on many occasions,
and so there's no reason to believe that
he's not lying now.
This is war
for them to actually telegraph
their real intentions
is even less likely.
But the most important thing
we need to understand
is that there is some type of problem
if they're fighting
with each other in the open.
There is some type of problem
inside the Russian military,
which is both
obvious from their fighting,
but also obvious
from the number of dead bodies
that are turning up on the Russian side
and the number of tanks
that are being destroyed
and so on and so forth.
And then there's
the issue of that drone attack
on the Kremlin last week.
I mean, the Kremlin says
the U.S., Ukraine, masterminded that.
Then there's also
a feeling that it could be some,
you know, anti-Kremlin
anti Putin group that might be behind it.
And this is what the chairman
of the House
Intelligence Committee said
about the incident on CNN earlier today.
I believe that there are
an attempt to distract everyone in Russia
from the fact
that Vladimir Putin
is is losing horribly in Ukraine.
And he needs to withdraw.
He needs to allow Ukraine to restore
their territorial borders
and the integrity of their country.
All right.
So again, a possible stunt, a diversion?
Well, yes, definitely.
I mean,
so I mean,
look at this,
that the Kremlin is
the most well-defended place
in the whole planet
for the idea
that that two drones could somehow
just get in there and explode over
the Kremlin is laughable.
And this is clearly some type of
orchestrated stunt
in order to create a narrative.
In my opinion,
the narrative is more about
escalating the war
and giving the Russian people
something to rally around.
And I mean, the the
the idea is that the Ukrainians,
with the Americans backing
have tried to kill Putin.
We won't let them.
But that justifies
us escalating further
and perhaps even drafting more people,
drafting more conscripts,
which is one of the things
that the Russians need
to do very desperately.
And so I don't believe for a second
that this was done by the Ukrainians
or by Russian Partizans
or by the Americans.
This is done
by Putin
as a as a way of
creating a domestic narrative. Hmm.
All right,
Bill Browder, we'll leave it there
for now. Thanks so much.
Thank you.