he was last seen leaving ross stor-on-don in a vehicle, pausing briefly to shake hands with people, then driving away. and while this showdown may have been defused for now, the threat to putin s regime may be far from over. the wagner leader showed just how easily he could take over a major russian military installation and city and then send columns of troops racing towards moscow. some wagner mercenaries were halfway to the capital when prigozhin abruptly ordered them back. a personal appeal by the president of belarus, a close putin ally, is credited with persuading prigozhin to call off his rebellion. meanwhile, the ukrainian president, volodymyr zelenskyy, says that the russian president is, quote, very afraid following wagner s chief s insurrection. he also claimed that putin had left moscow, adding the russian president s own actions were to blame for the situation facing him. meanwhile, an adviser to
and we do have an update from russia where traffic is still restricted on the major highway that connects the capital to rostov-on-don to the south. a local russian official says the highway is being repaired after it was damaged possibly by departing wagner mercenaries who d been in the area. as for yevgeny prigozhin the kremlin says it doesn t know where he is right now. he was last seen, of course, leaving rostov-on-don in a vehicle, pausing briefly to shake hands and then driving away. some wagner mercenaries were halfway to the capital when prigozhin abruptly ordered them back. a personal appeal by the president of belarus, a close putin ally, is credited with sursueding prigozhin to call off his mutiny. so how much do the russian people know about wagner s rebellion considering media in russia has been restricted had restricted freedom to report news. my colleague paula newton joins
also bring back palko. ryan, you have been in and out of russia since 1990 but you ve covered the country from inside for three decades. include into the war and ukraine broke out last year. i want to start the of. you have interviewed president putin s i want to get to that in a minute. if in practice president yevgen2 when he has spoken with the putin verse and could there have been a compromise offer? proxy one 100% but is spoken to president putin verse. there is no chance he could broker a deal between new guinea and letter putin without speaking with vladimir putin and getting his expressed support. in the relationship between alexander lukashenko the president of belarus and vladimir putin is clearly vladimir putin who is in charge. belarus is kind of like a client
shank oh, the president lukashenko, the president of belarus, but it may have been somebody else. and we don t really know what the deal is, why he turned around, if indeed he s really committed to turning all the way around, going back to rostov, going back to ukraine. there s a lot we don t know yet, and i think we ll watch this carefully, see if anybody else throws in with prigozhin even at this late time. how destabilizing, ambassador, is all of this, this chaos that s unfolding to vladimir putin? it has to be a big problem for him. he had been focused on ukraine, and his soldiers, his military, his leaders have been focused on ukraine. and now he s focused on staying in power. he s focused on prigozhin, a threat to him. he s worried about some of the other folks around him that he s not so sure about. so the focus has clearly shifted, and that s got to have an effect in ukraine. you mentioned earlier that the
recently poland, and of course, ukraine. the main message coming from the state department that he has been saying in those conversations is first of all, the united states does not change at all its support for ukraine. it continues to support ukraine. secondarily, they will continue to coordinate with u.s. allies and partners as this situation evolves. so they are trading notes on the conversations, trying to figure out where this all goes. as jeremy was saying, u.s. officials don t know what the end game is here, even though there has been this deal that has been brokered by the president of belarus, luke schencko. we have many questions. it is important to note that u.s. officials have been incredibly wary of the ongoing quickly evolving situation. they do not want to be perceived as having influenced or impacted or escalated this situation which is challenging president