last days and weeks? do we know much? richard had to go away, but ambassador mcfaul, what do we really know? i think prigozhin thought he had a good deal. i think that s what s interesting about what happened. remember to remind everybody, he led a mutiny. he started to march towards moscow saying the official russian military was not doing the right things, and he was deliberately not trying to take down or criticize vladimir putin. very important to understand. that was his strategy. putin cut a deal with him. he went to belarus for a while, but then he came back, and most recently, when vladimir putin was hosting two dozen african leaders in st. petersburg, prigozhin was having side meetings with many after can leaders. from his perspective, he thought everything was in good standing
say that wagner had been an arm of the russian military. we know prigozhin just a few weeks ago met with african leaders in st. petersburg, another curious situation where we saw photos of him shaking hand with african leaders. this may be well be they wanted to get their ducks lined up specifically in africa. as we heard, the number two in command also recently died and just hours ago we heard that the general, who many would say a is competently removed. they say he s on vacation. this war has been difficult for
we saw him meeting with wagner forces in belarus. we saw him greeting african leaders in st. petersburg. we saw him as recently as last week traveling, reportedly, to africa. while he was certainly a bit more muted and subdued in his tone, we didn t see the kind of bluster and criticism that we had seen before, i think it was still shocking to people that he was seemingly moving about very freely with no sense of being fearful for his life, and everyone was wondering how it was possible that he was still alive and how much longer he would stay alive for. the theory that some have is that, essentially, this time period would have been necessarily for the kremlin to effectively go about dismantling wagner and coming up with some kind of a succession plan for when, ultimately, prigozhin would be killed. matthew, how likely is it
chase. make more of what s yours. . right now we re monitoring events in russia where president vladimir putin may address reporters and make a statement on ukraine following his meeting with african leaders in st. petersburg. putin has been aggressively pursuing alliances with african nations for the past few years, but only 17 african leaders showed up to the summit. less than half of the 43 heads of state who attended the 2019 conference. it comes as fighting has intensified in ukraine, particularly in the south where ukraine s forces are pushing ahead with their counteroffensive. alex marquardt is covering the developments from kyiv. what are we learning as this summit wraps up? reporter: this has been a fascinating summit to watch, because it has been meant to
peace deal, but he continued to lay the blame at the feet of ukraine, essentially saying it s their fault that the fighting is ongoing, that the war even started, that there isn t peace now, that there aren t peace negotiations. he said there can t be a cease-fire right now when we re being attacked. he claimed that he never rejected a peace plan, but he went on to compliment the african peace plan as being a good basis for conversations going forward. so putin continues to play the victim here, continues to not take any blame, to deflect and lean on old arguments that it was essentially ukraine leaning toward the west that forced russia into invading. so this summit with african leaders in st. petersburg over the last few days has been interesting in terms of highlighting the strains that russia is feeling from the international community, and the pressure that it is under including from some of its closest allies here specifically from africa. paula? alex, what can you tell us