cnn international correspondent ivan watson reports on how those crucial hours played out from beginning to end. reporter: a weekend of chaos and drama in russia. mercenaries declared a mutiny and then called it off in under 24 hours. yevgeny prigozhin issued a call for rebellion. the head of the wagner mercenary group accusing top russian military commanders of gross mismanagement of the war in ukraine. then prigozhin released video of an alleged russian air strike on a wagner camp in ukraine, demanding revenge. russia s defense ministry denied the attack, and soon russia s top prosecutor announced criminal charges against prigozhin. then in the early hours of saturday, prigozhin followed through on his threats, sending his fighters across the border
at that train station in eastern ukraine. officials say they are doing this for public safety. all right. ed lavandera from odesa, ukraine. please stay safe as you are under curfew there. with us is cnn international correspondent ivan watson, who just spent a month reporting in and around ukraine and neighboring questions. the last we spoke you were on a moving train with internally displaced people, people coming from the east seeking safety. what is about to happen in the east? i think there are concerns and real fears that the hostilities on the ground are going to expand dramatically. traveling west in cars for the last couple of days i ve seen troop movements of ukrainians headed east. we know that the ukrainian authorities in the eastern provinces and regions have been
it s just absolutely awful. there s no more ruthless target than a train station in ukraine today because those refugees are largely, as you say, ivan, made up of women and children. the men cannot leave the country and elderly people. it s a deliberate civilian, potential crime. ivan watson, thanks so much. joining us now, a member of ukraine s parliament. it s good to have you. russia is claiming once again this attack is fake as they claimed about bucha, as they claim about what we ve seen in mariupol so far. they say in effect ukraine is killing its own people deliberately to somehow pin it on russia. what s your response to that? thank you, jim and bianna, for having me. they say this nonsense since 2014. remember the mh 17. they said ukrainians hit the malaysian boeing and everyone
area. that created a backlog of people. there were more people even than normal at that train station when it was struck by a russian missile, just many people waiting there trying to get out. so when you hear the russians accusing ukrainians of actually doing this saying it s a provo provocation, it s incredibly hard to believe they would even attempt to make that claim considering what you see as sort of a strike on the railway and then a double tap strike on this train station. listen, it s just lazy, it s gross, and it s obscene to hear them respond this way. brianna keilar, thank you. cnn international correspondent ivan watson. it s chilling given you rode with evacuees along a similar route yesterday, just to remind our viewers that ukraine has one of the largest rail systems in europe. talk about what you heard from them and some of the fears that they expressed to you then.
homes for makeshift shelters inside ukraine. cnn s international correspondent ivan watson is in the city of dnipro for us. about one fourth of ukraine has been displaced internally or externally. you ve met some of those people. reporter: i have. a focal point right now is this russian siege on this port city called mariupol. before the war, it had a population of more than 400,000 people. i spoke with one family that managed to escape, escape russia s bombardment of their home. children at play, frolicking in an arcade meant for laser tag. these are not normal times. the owners have turned their