It is 12 00 in new york. Were following what has already been a dramatic day of testimony on capitol hill from two key witnesses, former nsc Senior Adviser fiona hill and current u. S. Diplomat david holmes, both witnesses raising alarms today about the conduct they witnessed between the Trump Administration and ukraine, namely the conditioning of both military aid and a white house meeting on a commitment from the ukrainians into those investigations designed to hurt the bidens, a Smear Campaign against Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch who was apparently standing in the way. The conduct of both of todays witness witnesses, they believed lives could be jeopardized in ukraine. Here is some of the dramatic testimony of fiona hill and david holmes. The barrage of allegations
directed against ambassador yovanovitch, a career ambassador, is unlike anything i have seen in my professional career. I heard ambassador sondland say to the president , yes, he was in ukraine, and went on to say
prigozhin. the kremlin is being pressed to have a state funeral for him and whether or not putin will attend. it s a tricky situation for putin. it does underscore the fact that you cannot trust vladimir putin. we ve seen his interactions with countries, commitment to treaties with the united states and elsewhere. it s a dubious enterprise to consider some type of negotiated agreement with putin. meanwhile, ukraine has been more aggressive about using drones to attack russia inside its own borders. the ukraine drone strikes inside russia should relieve exaggerated fears about the consequences of crossing putin s supposed red lines. providing more aid to ukraine won t raise the risk. is putin wore.
group, which was the only russian military unit that made gains, but he also fired a respected russian military commander among several who were not so respected. he s the one who set up those defenses in the east. is putin and russia weaker without them? i think russia and putin are both weaker. now, you could argument that putin is a little bit stronger today with prigozhin killed. that is, he s reasserted some authority. however, it has to be true that he is weaker today than he has before june 24th when the mutiny happened. when the mutiny happened, that showed that putin didn t have full control and showed that there were a lot of people that didn t support him. there was no pushback on prigozhin as he was heading for moscow. even in the military. so that shows a weakness there.
a good sunday evening to you. i m jim sciutto, and this is cnn s special live coverage of the extraordinary yet short-lived uprising in russia that has left much of the world asking exactly how this happened and what could happen next. is putin s leadership under threat? is this an opportunity for ukraine to repel russia s ongoing invasion? we do have new developments tonight, including reaction from the biden administration. but first video has emerged on social media which shows the crash site of a russian military transport plane, reportedly shot down in southern russia saturday by the wagner mercenary group which carried out this rebellion. the russian defense ministry still has not commented on the loss of any aircraft. also, there is still no sign this evening of wagner s leader, yevgeny prigozhin, after he apparently cut a deal with moscow and called off the
have warned that the prigozhin led rebellion risks pushing russia into a civil war. in a televised statement addressing these advances from within, putin said the wagner group s actions were a quote, stab in the back to russia and its people. so how could this infighting impact putin s hold on the country and his hold in ukraine? are back with me. collin, you ve been following the wagner group s movements over the past year and earlier this month you wrote about how these boiling tensions between prigozhin and the russian military could signal that putin is losing his grip on power. explain that to us. is putin s hold on russia in fact slipping, did the military overreach when they were trying to bring wagner in under its control, under its chain of command? was this really about ammunition, as prigozhin was saying, and i m throwing a lot