takes the most centralization of all. right now, there s probably a lot of question about what s going on inside those headquarters, who they can trust, who they can t, who they can rely on, and candidly, i think that this is the opportunity the ukrainians have been looking for, to conduct a counter-offensive, and they ought to take advantage of the situation now. let s see if they do. as you know, russia has warned western countries to not try to use all of this, what s unfolding right now, inside russia, to their advantage. what does that say to you, general, about the state russia is in right now? well, we ve heard these kind of messages in various ways throughout the war. if you do x, we re going to use nuclear weapons, if you do y, we re going to do attack and separation, nuclear facility, i think we just got to recognize that there may not be enough opportunity like this, even at the risk of this playing out,
caught offguard by how fast this all escalated because they of course have been watching closely the deteriorating relationship between prigozhin and the russian ministry of defense, with prigozhin repeatedly accusing the russian military of depriving his troops and of russian troops inside ukraine with key ammunition and other equipment and essentially living them there to die. but they didn t know at what point this would reach this tipping point and few could predict, according to our sources, just how far prigozhin would be willing to go here, in terms of actually storming rostov-on-don, and moving his forces even further towards moscow. that was not something that u.s. officials were anticipating, and last night, we are told they did convene emergency meetings across the u.s. government, to try to assess the situation, which of course is very concerning to u.s. and western officials, because of the instability that it creates inside russia, which is a nuclear armed state. so they
russian cities. the russian president vladimir putin calls the acts an armed mutiny. he s warning that those responsible will be in his words punished. wagner is said to be marching toward moscow, right now, and the governor of the southern region says wagner is moving heavy equipment through his territory, that territory by the way is about 250 miles from moscow. security is now extremely tight in the russian capital city, which is preparing anti-terrorist measures. that s what authorities are calling it. joining us now, peter bergen and beth sander, both cnn national security analysts. peter, at least one russian general has called this a coup. his word, a coup. prigozhin says it s not a coup but what he calls a march for justice in russia. putin likened what he now faces to the russian revolution back in 1917. so how significant is it? and how worried do you think putin is right now?
. the wagner mercenary chief yevgeny prigozhin rose to prominence as a very close ally of vladimir putin. but now, he s leading what putin says is a rebellion against him. let s go to our senior international correspondent fred pleitgen. he s watching all of this unfold. fred, give us a better sense right now of who prigozhin is. reporter: yes, certainly, someone who was very important until very recently, was very important for vladimir putin and also helped vladimir putin to do some of the things that are quite shady and were impossible for the actual regular russian military to do. one of the things of course that we ve been talking about is he started from very humble beginnings, in the saint petersburg area, which of course is the same place that vladimir putin is from as well, he spent a couple of years in jail, in
troops out of bakhmut, where it spent ten months trying to take that town. it s been replaced by russian recruits who are not as battle hardened as the wagner troops. that could make a difference. in general, certainly the fact that the main command center for russian troops in southern ukraine is in rostov-on-don, in the place that now yevgeny prigozhin and his mercenaries are in control. so how they re going to coordinate activities in southern ukraine while all this is going on is anyone s guess. we re watching all of this very closely. ben wedeman, stay safe over there. we will, of course, continue to