overthrow vladimir putin. and we re learning more about where yevgeny prigozhin might be at this hour. also ahead, ukraine tries to make the most of russia s crisis on the battlefield after a slow, bloody start to their counter offensive. plus, president biden s first public comments on everything that s unfolding in russia, and on capitol hill, lawmakers voicing their concerns but will that translate to more dollars and supplies for ukraine? our nbc news reporters are following all of the latest developments, but we begin with nbc s matt bradley who has the latest on this challenge to putin s leadership. so matt, how significant is this new audio from prigozhin who has not been publicly seen since all of those people were coming around him in russia as he was getting ready to leave. well, it s pretty significant, chris, when you consider the fact that we haven t heard from this man in the past two days. it shed just a little bit more light on an episode that has really b
as you mentioned, prigozhin said he wasn t trying to unseat vladimir putin. he wasn t trying to take down the russian government, it was just a protest, and this was something we had heard him saying before. for prigozhin, all of the mystery surrounding this man, he is a very public person. he says a lot on social media. he doesn t seem to hold a lot close to his chest. once again, he was pretty verbose. he blamed the government, he said, for attacking his soldiers, and killing 30 of them, and that is what prompted this protest alongside moves by the government to try to incorporate the wagner group into the ministry of december, essentially making them part of the regular army, and of course that would mean that prigozhin and his private army, the wagner group would then be effectively cancelled, and that was something apparently that prigozhin was not going to abide. that s why he decided to make that march on moscow and to take over that base to the east of ukraine. both of those ef