people the southern headquarters of the russian military is in this place. , rostov-on-don, prigozhin says he plans to lead his troops, quote, to moscow. speaking earlier this, morning putin confirmed prigozhin s claims. military and civilian functions within the city of rostov-on-don have been blocked. vowing to take, quote, decisive action to put down what he in the kremlin or calling the quote, armed rebellion that is being undertaken by a traitor. putin also vowed to not let the rebellion become a civil war. similar to the bolsheviks at the end of world war i. there are multiple reports indicating there has been small fighting along a major highway in the area. we presume that s between wagner and the russian military. as well as reports of convoys of military equipment being moved along that highway. russia s moving military into and around moscow and other major cities. you can see that mobilization on your screen here. this is moscow. these are pictures that were given
level mid level mafia operator to unseat the godfather. and prigozhin goes back to putin, those early days, in the catering business. prigozhin is sometimes called putin s chef. he s not actually a chef, he might know how to, cook but that s not what his job. was he was a petty criminal. he was arrested and imprisoned for theft on more than one occasion. when he got out of jail, very smart, according to people i spoke to who know him personally and work for him, spoke to wagner defectors who described him as detail oriented, ruthless and ambitious. this is a man who, after getting out of prison, in st. petersburg, turned one hotdog stand into a chain of restaurants and most critically, for him, one of those restaurants became the young vladimir putin s hang out where his early inner circle spent
dads, who would potentially cause problems for the state. these were, in many cases, criminals, people who had other kinds of issues with violence. who could be brought into this mercenary army, and when they died, they were sent back home, they were quickly buried, and very few people ask questions about it. i went to central russia and many of these people were recruited from the poorest parts of central russia. and when the bodies came, back because first they were fighting in eastern ukraine, they were also fighting bashir al-assad in syria. when the bodies did go home, they were buried in secret, we weren t allowed to film them. it was a code of omerta that, yes, this group existed, by the, way for most of its existent wagner was operating in secret, but you couldn t talk about it. then, the big break out moment came with the invasion of ukraine about a year and a half
certainly created a lot of doubts about the u.s. electoral system, and created a lot of chaos. it created a lot of rage. and outrage that we are still seeing percolating through twitter and social media, and facebook, all the different forms. so this is someone who goes all the way back to the early days with lot of my putin. who has done special tasks for him. one of those tasks was the bot farm, the troll farm, another was creating the wagner group. the wagner group is the world s largest mercenary army at this stage. it was created by prigozhin in order to give putin an off the books force. so that putin could have an army, a private army, at his disposal that would carry out nationalist oriented tasks, but if its members died, they weren t sending body bags home to ordinary russian moms and
people the southern headquarters of the russian military is in this place. , rostov-on-don, prigozhin says he plans to lead his troops, quote, to moscow. speaking earlier this, morning putin confirmed prigozhin s claims. military and civilian functions within the city of rostov-on-don have been blocked. vowing to take, quote, decisive action to put down what he in the kremlin or calling the quote, armed rebellion that is being undertaken by a traitor. putin also vowed to not let the rebellion become a civil war. similar to the bolsheviks at the end of world war i. there are multiple reports indicating there has been small fighting along a major highway in the area. we presume that s between wagner and the russian military. as well as reports of convoys of military equipment being moved along that highway. russia s moving military into and around moscow and other major cities. you can see that mobilization on your screen here. this is moscow. these are pictures that were given to us by