but even if the threat is over and it s not at all clear that saturday s turn around was, in fact, the end, what did the flash of descent do to russia itself, not the government or security services but the people. what message did russians get over the weekend? what did they see when yevgeny prigozhin s tanks move toward the capital? what did they feel when his troops reportedly shot down several russian helicopters? that s according to ukraine s air force. what did they hear when vladimir putin called prigozhin a traitor and compared his threat to 1917. we re going to ask masha gessen of the new york. the russia public saw something extraordinary, a choice, it will something that changes russia even if it doesn t alter putin s control in the short term. let s get our reporting and the news from russian tv that vladimir putin will speak tonight. joining me now from moscow is nbc news chief international correspondent keir simmons. so keir, this news that he s going to speak,
country s president, alexander lukashenko. mr prigozhin issued an audio statement on monday but has not been seen in public since saturday. a little early in a moscow president putin thanked his security forces for protecting the country at last weekend, silently had stopped a civil war. the fsb have confirmed though that a criminal case against wagner has been dropped. the defence ministry says, the group will have to hand over heavy weapons and equipment. this was putin a little ealier. translation: soldiers and officers are the true defenders translation: soldiers and officers are the true defenders of translation: soldiers and officers are the true defenders of the - are the true defenders of the motherland, who in a difficult time for the country together with their comrades in arms stood in the way of the unrest, which inevitably would have resulted in chaos. you protected the constitution, the lies and the safety of our people. you save our form turmoil. and the s
putin s power is becoming tenuous for the first time in 23 years. good evening. good evening to you, trace. the civil war that appeared to be on the point of breaking out in russia has become a war of words with a clearly angry russian president lashing out at those who led what he called the rebellion. they wanted russian soldiers to kill each other. soldiers and civilians would die and russia would lose and our society split. choke in a bloody strife. putin never mentioned the mercenary leader by name but the notorious head of the group was central to everything putin said. once a close friend and ally he s putin s public enemy number one. locations and intents unknown. giving no clues in an audio statement released today in which he come papered the ease of his troop s movement through russia to the failures of russia s regular army when they invaded ukraine 16 months ago. a master class on how february 24th, 2022 should look like. did not have the goal of over thr
good morning, it is 11:00 a.m. eastern, i m katy tur here from new york. and i m chris jansing with special coverage on what is happening inside russia. for the first time, we are still waiting to hear from vladimir putin. now, we haven t heard anything since his former ally and the head of the ruthless mercenary wagner group attempt add revolt, and this new video released by russia, is it new or just something put out by the kremlin? who knows when it was taped. we can t say. and where is the man responsible for the dramatic weekend events, yevgeny prigozhin. right now we still don t know and he hasn t been seen since saturday when he decided to turn his forces back after marching toward the kremlin. and seemingly agreed to live in exile in belarus. so now russia, a country armed with more nuclear weapons than any other nation led by a man desperate to proclaim the old soviet union glory is at a crossroads. and while the world watches, ukraine is acting. ukrainian forces
whole world on a nerve s edge? yevgeny prigozhin out of sight. this is the last-known image of the wagner leader fleeing, striking a deal to go to belarus after leading an armed rebellion over the weekend. but is there a deal really? what does it say about his motive in that new audio recording? plus, the kremlin scrambling pro project control, releasing new video of vladimir putin today. we hadn t seen him in more than 48 hours since releasing a short statement during the most dramatic challenge to his power in decades. his whereabouts officially are still unknown since we don t know exactly when or where the video was recorded. president biden, though, making it clear in the last hour putin can t point fingers at his enemies. he gave no excuse to blame this on the west or blame this on nato. we made clear that we were not involved, we had nothing to do with it. this is part of a struggle within russia s system. in about 15 minutes we ll hear from the u.s. state departme