good eveningmism i m anderson cooper in new york. this is special coverage of the extraordinary and still confusing events we have been reporting on for the past 24 hours out of russia and of what will be a critical day ahead for vladimir putin. what we witnessed over the last 24 hours appears to have been the most serious threat to putin s hold on power in decades. at this hour we know a lot, but it s important to point out there is a lot that is not known. for instance, what will be the fate of the man in the back seat of this suv, prigozhin, cheered by some as he appeared to be leaving the southern russian town, his mercenary force had just occupy. this video taken just hours after he called off his mercenaries from their push toward moscow and agreed to a deal brokered by russia s ally, belarus. translator: therefore realizing all the responsibility for the fact that russian blood will be shed from one of the sides, we turn our columns around and leave in the opposite d
so this squabble has been going on for some time. and there are people today even who believe this was more about displacing shoigu and rather than displacing putin. i think the dust has to settle on that yet. but clearly mr. prigozhin had a plan that he executed well to take over two very important cities in the south to start making his point that something needed to change with the senior military leadership of russia. alexander, i mean does that make sense to you that prigozhin was going to go to moscow with his mercenaries and, what, confront shoigu and other military leaders? because clearly vladimir putin in his statement was portraying this as a treasonous act, a stab in the back, a betrayal. we don t know whether the plan was really to go into moscow, but they came very close, much closer than many
reaction inside russia, what we know about it. jill dougherty joins us. jill, vladimir putin delivered this emergency speech, which we all saw this morning calling the mutiny an act of treasonous, a stab in the back, a betrayal harkening wack to the russian revolution. i just want to play some of what he said to the russian people. translator: all those who deliberately chose the path of treachery, who prepared an armed mutiny, who chose the path of blackmail and terrorist methods will face inevitable punishment and will answer both to the law and to our people. so earlier this morning he said they re going to answer to the law and to our people, and now all of a sudden that doesn t seem to be appearing to happen. will putin forgive? he won t forgive him. putin doesn t forgive traitors. and he s been so clear. i mean at the beginning of the war you probably remember he said scum and traitors. so even if he says, prigozhin,
i think that it s very imaginable russian forces need to go through the people who took part in the mutiny and filter them and figure out who was really actively plotting that. i don t think that any force will now go back from their positions and defend the cities. i think that the force fighting in ukraine will remain in intact. but mr. putin will probably need to invest more resources in his counter intelligence and the political police, so the regime needs to become more brutal and more hands onto prevent situations like this from happening in the future. alexander gabuev, appreciate it, alexander breedlove as well. thank you so much. ahead we re going to continue to focus on what has occurred. just how the man once known s putin s chef became the person to put serious bruises on the russian leader s war in ukraine. a closer look at yevgeny prigozhin and what happens next