there has been no sign of yevgeny prigozhin. his news service tells cnn he will answer questions when he has proper communication. one thing, though, is clear. this insurrection marks the most profound threat we ve seen to putin s 23-year-long rule, and the u.s. secretary of state says the turmoil may not be over yet. it s too soon to tell exactly where this is going to go. and i suspect that this is a moving picture, and we haven t seen the last act yet. but we can say this. first of all, what we ve seen is extraordinary, and i think you see cracks emerge that weren t there before. the military revolt lasted less than 24 hours, was it was long enough to bring into question vladimir putin s aura of invincibility and stability, damage his self-proclaimed reputation as a leader who never forgets a slight, never tolerates disloyalty.
simply not that way, right? second, again with this coup d etat attempt, if that s what it was, right, there s no indication that the russian population was cheering prigozhin on, right? so i think we need to step back and assess, you know, the facts on the ground that we can see here. this war in ukraine is the worst war that russia has waged, you know, since 1917, right? it s been a disaster for them, and it will continue to be a disaster. i m sure of that, on the battlefield. but that doesn t mean putin s weak. has ukraine been able to take advantage of this, or will they be able to take advantage of this? how do you see it? i m going to have to go into an american football metaphor here unfortunately. it s like if your enemy team fumbles the football. they could fumble it and recover it at the same spot they fumbled, meaning nothing really changes. they could fumble it. your team could recover it and fall on the same spot, meaning you re not really in that much of a different p
minister and general gerasimov. this looks very much to me like a putin win. and the most important thing here is the elites, the oligarchs, that everybody keeps waiting to turn on putin, well, this was their shot, and they didn t take it, john. so i think that hope that putin is going to be ousted is really gone now, because there is no other insurrection come anything fi time soon. there is no other prigozhin in the wings? there is no other prigozhin in the wings. look, coup d etats aren t military-only events. they re political events with military components. and prigozhin provided the military component of this, but he couldn t come through with the political side. he didn t have political support. and the fact that nobody gave him that support in moscow is indicative that putin still has control, control of the security services, and he has the control
and loyalty of at least enough of the elites. i want you the listen to the u.s. secretary of state anthony blinken on how he sees the bigger picture here for russia and putin. 16 months ago, russian forces were on the doorstep of kyiv, ukraine, thinking they were going to take the city in a matter of days, erase the country from the map. now they had to be focused on defending moscow, russia s capital against mercenaries of putin s own making. so this raises lots of profound questions that will be answered i think in the days and weeks ahead. so this coup d etat may have been a win for putin in some ways. overall works you say this war of choice in ukraine has been the biggest disaster of his presidency and just keeps getting worse, and u.s. intelligence putin will have if any military victories in ukraine. how does this play into presidential elections which are scheduled for next march?
it s early to do that but clearly his stature his prestige his image is diminished internationally and domesticly. which is one of the reasons why i don t think he is going to let yevgeny prigozhin run around free and easy. he says president putin may choose to exert control over the wagner group and its activities after this insurrection. yevgeny prigozhins current whereabouts unknown. more on the man once known as putin s chef. the man vaped screaming at top military officials for be