hi, bret. bret: this is america s newsroom. 36 hours of chaos threatening vladimir putin s grip on power. mercenary group that was supporting russia in ukraine turning against the kremlin and marching towards moscow. dana: the rebels were members of the wagner group. their leader called off the revolte at the 11th hour. not clear why. his whereabouts right now are unknown. ukrainian forces taking advantage of the chaos. they are reporting gains against russian troops in the east. russian defense minister is making his first public appearance since the revolt doing little to quell speculation that putin is in serious jeopardy. much of his longevity is tied to what happens inside ukraine. he knows full well his future is dependent on what happens in ukraine. i don t see him admitting that he made a terrible mistake here and pull all his troops out. you see a real public perception going against putin. he doesn t have a strong sense of being a strong man anymore. see
known something was brewing. they keep people inside of all these units who are loyal to the kremlin. that they didn t do anything about it before it reached this fever pitch is really quite strange to me. it is also this deal. i was listening americans were surprised by this deal. everybody was surprised by the deal including russians. and now the problem for putin is he has to explain why after going on television in that five-minute address, rather alarmist address about how it might be 1917 all over again and we were going to crush them and they were treasonous and then you make a deal. one reason you haven t heard putin speak is they are trying to get the story together to justify what happened here. dana: putin has always been worried about this. this is the kind of russian dna to worry about the revolt. they have had multiple revolts against the kremlin throughout their history, the most famous the one that putin referenced in