putin has promised to punish those who have carried out what he calls armed rebellion and treason that comes after wagner mercenary chief yevgeny prigozhin claimed to have seized several facilities from the russian military which he accused of attacking and killing his own fighters. joining me now to discuss this is sam green, director of the russia institute at kings college, london. thanks so much for being here with us. so, first, what did you make of putin s reaction to this crisis? calling it a stab in the back, and treason. well, look, i mean, it s really probably the only reaction that he could have, you know, even though prigozhin seemingly went out of his way to say he was not attacking putin himself, that this was a challenge to the defense minister shoigu and the chief
could expand. you know, i think certainly people will be looking at how the military is going to respond down to a grassroots level. because when you listen to putin s speech, he doesn t address any of what prigozhin has said that the russian military has been essentially sending young russian conscripts into slaughter, that it hasn t been giving them enough ammunition, enough training, that there s been a wanton loss of soldiers and fighters, and nowhere in putin s speech does he address that, which leaves open the question that how are other ranks in the military going to respond when they have to go toe to toe with wagner s mercenary fighters who look like them, speak the same language, hold the same weapons, firing ammunition from the same weapons depots and stores, how is that going to shake down? and i think the other big piece that many in the international community will look for is the
russian defense minister, saying he should be tried, he s failing his own people, he s not providing ammunition on the front lines. in those messages he wasn t just addressing his own men, the wagner mercenary group, he was talking to russia at large and throughout that, there was always that question. why hasn t president putin stepped in? why is he allowing this figure to grow bolder, more public, and louder? we have that answer now, of course, with president putin s address just a few hours ago accusing yevgeny prigozhin of treason, saying he will be held to account, but is it too late? has the blow already been dealt to president putin s standing? because he will now have to turn to those very same military leaders who he allowed to be antagonized and embarrassed and humiliated publicly for months to deal with the problem. that is, yevgeny prigozhin. and you have a prigozhin holed up in a city rostov-on-don taking over military sites heavily armed and guarded by his men.
his favor from one to another to ensure that no one gets particularly powerful, that could threaten him. you re right, putin and prigozhin go way back. but as not as military. so prigozhin has recently come onto the scene as the head of the wagner. for a while he denied it was even he was even associated with it. now, he admits, it s clear that he s involved in this thing. and, putin has got to worry that prigozhin is mounting a coup. they re talking about a coup, an armed coup that could threaten putin s regime. so, is that for real? i mean, in other words you re saying that the wagner group, if prigozhin were to go ahead with this, this armed rebellion, as he s threatening tonight, that he could pull off a coup? he has said that he s doing a
monitoring those tensions between the wagner mercenary group and the russian ministry of defense. of course, both of those sides have been sanctioned by the united states for their role in russia s invasion of ukraine and we do know the wagner mercenary group has played an increasingly key role in the russian military war effort inside of ukraine. so, certainly on friday this was a very tense and unfolding situation that the white house is going to be continuing to be monitoring. jeremy diamond, cnn, the white house. and cnn international diplomatic editor nic robertson joins us from london. starting with what we just saw, the international reaction. the world, of course, is watching keenly. what s been the reaction from other nations so far? yeah, there s a concern being spoken about by british officials front office that the instability that s being witnessed in russia and rustov and other places could grow,