we can t have these conversations without you, so i know you are juggling a lot of things. but thank you very much for making some time to talk to us. we re grateful. e time to talk to us we re grateful . ,. . it to the to th according to russian state media, the criminal case against yevgeny prigozhin, the head of the wagner group, a private mercenary army in russia critical to russia s ability to wage war in ukraine, will be dropped. that s what they re saying at least. and he will be an exile in belarus. so far, it is not clear if you will actually give up leadership or commands of the wagner group. but he sent a voice note signaling that his forces would stand down. that order comes after a day of putin back negotiations with prigozhin to avoid russian losses inside russian territory. with promises of safety guarantees for the wagner fighters. until just a few hours ago, wagner forces were marching toward moscow. appearing to be ready to wage an armed result against
inside eastern ukraine where the war is playing out. horrors striking a city center as a top russian investigative reporter has new details for us about the phone calls leading up to the insurrection against putin. that reporter is my guest. and my full explosive interview with the ukrainian foreign minister, why he thinks the threat to putin is far from over, and his fears of an attack on europe s largest nuclear power plant. plus, a wagner commander speaks out to cnn about yevgeny prigozhin s bold coup attempt and what s next for the man who humiliated vladimir putin. let s go outfront. and good evening, i m erin burnett. welcome to a special edition of outfront. we are live tonight in eastern ukraine in the city of dnipro, a city on the road to the front lines of putin s war. behind me, you see blackness. but there is a city behind me of nearly 1 million people. it is just completely dark. after curfew completely dark. the street lights behind me are all shut off
after taking bakhmut, meaning that whatever happenened after that was, essentially, not wagner. therefore, i do not think, at least for the time being, that it will affect the war effort there. meanwhile, one of ukraine s most celebrated fighter pilots and two other airmen have been killed in a mid air crash. captain andrii pilshchykov won fame taking part in close range aerial battles over kyiv during the early phase of russia s invasion, flying under the call sign juice. the three pilots were killed when two l 39 combat training aircraft collided over a region west of kyiv. the ukrainian military called the deaths painful and irreparable losses. and the military paid tribute to him as a young officer with mega knowledge and mega talent . in an address, president volodymyr zelensky acknowledged how much pilshchykov had done for the country.
had no choice but to try to do something, because he was clearly losing. his group, wagner group, plead almost no part right now. now it is the russian army which is fighting the ukrainian forces trying to stop the ukrainian counteroffensive, not wagner. and the memory of this big victory in bakhmut is getting more and more distant, and given the fact that the minister of defense decided to change the rule for companies like wagner s, prigozhin needed to do something. so he completely miscalculated, but he was, in a way, he needed to do something. i m curious, he looked at all the phone data, incredible reporting and he s found that in the two days before the rebellion, the insurrection, there was this flurry of calls in the night and through the night, including the gru to the
you brought us the news literally as it was coming across the proverbial wire of the top of the last hour. what are we learning this hour? so, nicole, in the last few minutes russian state media out with a new report. they are saying yevgeny prigozhin, the leader of the wagner mercenary group, has left. left this military headquarters in this southern city of rostov, which he seized in the early hours of this morning. he s been holed up in that building over the course of the day, surrounded by rings of heavily armed mercenaries. that is the location that he s been carrying out these negotiations, as his forces went north up the m4 towards moscow. russian state media reporting that he has now left that building. we don t know where he s going, but this came about 40 minutes or so after the kremlin spokesman dimitri peskov gave us our first glimpse into the details of the deal that appear, again appear nicole, to have