that. and there are all of the dealings like syria and the oil fields that wagner runs there, and what is going to happen to the training forces, will he maintain control of that while he is in exile in belarus. whenever the outcome, a moment in history for russia. thank you for joining us. cnn s coverage continues with michael holmes after a break.
likely to get away with it. i m not so sure that he s going to disappear into exile in belarus or that he s going to get killed because, look, putin clearly wanted him dead, and he couldn t deliver on that. that is a major sign of weakness, and i think the way that prigozhin survived, he wasn t led out in handcuffs. he left with his force, with his weapons, with his equipment intact while crowds were cheering him, and some of them were even hugging his soldiers in wagner. that was remarkable. he overnight propelled himself to the top of the russian political system. he was not that well known prior to this weekend because he was never covered on television. now his name recognition is off the charts. now everyone has seen that he has confronted the czar, confronted putin, and at least for now gotten away with it. t so much to watch. thanks so much to both of you. coming up next, another story we ve been following closely. the coast guard now leads the
rule. the very latest now from cnn s sam kiley live from london. sam, we re watching russia closely, ukraine, also events in belarus. any developments to indicate to us what s actually happening right now? reporter: well, jim, i think the most stunning development so far is an absence of any kind of news about the whereabouts of yevgeny prigozhin, the leader of the wagner mercenary group. as you rightly point out there, he was in command of, although not present in, necessarily, a column of military, his military that got within 200 kilometers, 125 miles of moscow, and then suddenly there was this intervention from lukashenko from belarus. and we saw pictures of the mercenary leader leaving rostov-on-don, ostensibly for exile and safety, critically, in neighboring belarus whilst his
side. putin once again did not and said that everyone has to sign contracts with m.o.d. i think this was an attempt to force shoigu to renege on that order, to let prigozhin keep wagner, a very lucrative business by the way, and i think he did not expect putin to come out so strongly against him. he did not expect to get this far before shoigu would capitulate and let him keep wagner. so on that goal, if that was his goal, short of toppling the russian president, has prigozhin, to the best of our knowledge at this point, succeeded in that goal, kept wagner as an independent, self-governing group? it s impossible to answer that right now. we ll see. and if shoigu is removed in the next day, that will be a sign that he has successfully shaken the trees to a certain extent. i think it s useful to think of this arrangement they have, think of putin as a kind of pre-modern king who has hustled out spheres of influence to favored warlords. in this instance, this one warlord in prigozhin,