i think this is consequence management. and it is interesting that he spoke after prigozhin. and prigozhin still was able to get his message out there. i saw a little bit of tweets and all of the social media about prigozhin s message before putin s. that s significant, when you re playing for power. putin is going to i don t know what kind of crackdowns he will do, but clearly, he s got to investigate where were the weaknesses that allowed this to happen, both domestically and in ukraine. one more question, if we can, i ask you to put your uniform back on for a moment and imagine now you re commanding ukrainian forces on the eastern front in ukraine. do you attempt to take advantage of turmoil inside of russia? particularly given that wagner forces have played such an essential role in russia s invasion in ukraine. and reintegration with regular
said it would be suicide for prigozhin to relocate to belarus because he would not have any safety, any guarantees from the revenge of vladimir putin. that was said to me earlier by the belarusian opposition in exile. we also have with us cnn s nick paton walsh who is reporting live in kyiv. clearly a discrepancy, what we heard from prigozhin talking earlier about this not being a coup attempt, this being an opportunity to speak of corruption among the russian ministry of defense. vladimir putin is not buying that. no and he doesn t even mention yevgeny prigozhin, a man whose allegiance, confidence, he s been relying on for years. didn t mention him by name. it is clear, the traitors he s referring to, the people behind the events that required this solidarity, this unified position by the russian people that he praises so openly is prigozhin. and if i heard that and i was
a very big moment that we sue happening here, moments ago, russian president vladimir putin addressing his country. he really needed to after the brief, but brazen armed rebellion that we saw over the weekend. putin saying, quote, all the necessary actions to neutralize the threat were taken to stop the wagner mutiny. he called a mutiny. he also said that wagner troops may choose to sign contracts with the russian military or go to belarus. back with us, cnn international diplomatic editor nic robertson. interesting, he did not say prigozhin s name which is something that is a pattern for him when he is not really wanting to elevate an enemy of his. and he elevates that enemy, the enemy that s right under his skin and has been for some time, alexei navalny. an enemy that has tried to neutralize, tried to poison,