into perspective, a few weeks ago prigozhin was going around russia, holding press conferences in a number of russian cities, and also he had started a big recruitment drive for his private military company, as we were speaking today, wagner posts are being taken down all over russia, bogosian has been sent to exile in belarus, so it has cost him at least temporarily his potential for political influence inside russia. prigozhin. one can expect in return he has received something, that could be monetary compensation or a promise for instance to continue to run the wagner operations in africa, which are essential to russia s grip on africa. and then one can imagine all sorts of scenarios, what about prigozhin opening a new wagner group in belarus that would then allow him to recruit belarus young convicts and send them to ukraine, thus
then, in the early evening, prigozhin announced that he had agreed to stop the advance. tensions had been building between mr prigozhin and russia s military leadership for some time over their approach to the war in ukraine. our russia editor, steve rosenberg, reports. leaving as heroes. the wagnerfighters pulling out of rostov last night. you d think they d just won a war. the leader of the mercenary group, yevgeny prigozhin, was off too. he d just done a deal with the kremlin to end their mutiny. the rebellion started here then spread north. it was the biggest challenge to vladimir putin s authority since he came to power. vladimir vladimirovich putin. russia s commander in chief likes to project an image of strength. a mutiny on his watch
has not stopped at the ministry of defense to be quite clear on putin himself has lined up squarely behind his defense minister. so even if, you know, formally this does stop with the defense minister from prigozhin s point of view it will be treated as a channing to put tin and prigozhin will have to overcomputin himself and the entire russian state to get his way. i m struggling to see a way in which he could possibly succeed in this. yeah. but it does put putin in a difficult position. the last thing that he needs the world to see, and the last thing that he needs the russian public and the rest of the russian system to see is a armed conflict on russian territory between the russian military, and wagner, which, you know, again as putin himself has said, has been fighting shoulder to shoulder with the russian
sort of other assurers of power around putin, because, of course, prigozhin was a long time, a very trusted confidant. the wagner mercenary group, an extended arm of russia s foreign policy, deniable until fairly recently in many countries around the world. but, for putin himself having such a close confidant with such a large and capable military close to him was a reason for perhaps putin to look upon his own security as being slightly assured the other place that he would look for his own security would be the leader ramzan cadirov who has been loyal and has put many fighters into ukraine, and there s been evidence the past number of months that points to the fact that even they are getting somewhat disturbed by their rate of losses.
collapse of the russian state and military, and then a civil war. he was not mincing words here. in the end of his address he mentioned some concrete actions that he was taking. he was adopting counterterrorism measures in moscow and in some other regions. he acknowledged that the situation in the southern province of rustov is complicated. he said that the civilian and military command areas had been blockaded, and of course he vowed punishment. but this was basically acknowledging what we ve seen unfold in social media, and in claims by yevgeny prigozhin, the head of wagner, who announced he had taken over the command headquarters in the south of russia of the russian military. take a listen to what he said. translator: we are at headquarters at 7:30 a.m. military facilities in rustov