a good sunday evening to you. i m jim sciutto. and welcome back to cnn special live coverage of the russian rebellion that erupted without warning and ended quickly this weekend not long after it began. yet and we should be clear the world is only beginning to assess the fallout. there are growing questions tonight about vladimir putin s leadership going forward and whether his iron grip on russia is weakening. the crash site of a russian military plane reportedly brought down by the wagner group yesterday. the cause of the crash not clear. but footage indicates the aircraft had been struck by a missile or rocket. there s still no sign of vladimir s leader, yevgeny prigozhin, who led this march on russia, af he cut a deal to go into belarus. also not seen, putin. we re going to have the latest on the white house reaction and president biden s conversation today with ukraine s leader. first, though, an update from cnn s matthew chance, who is in moscow. reporter: jim,
it caused him some damage. definitely, yes. there is some other thing that you can think of now. a lot of people will think, well, maybe putin knows it s not as bad. you could have someone like prigozhin being in charge. that could potentially benefit him in some way. but definitely it showed that he doesn t have full control of the situation and russia was all of the bad and good things. prigozhin was perceived as a threat to putin even before this attempt in the last 24, 48 hours here. is prigozhin less of a threat now to putin s leadership? that s why i asked initially whether it s possible, in some ways, putin emerged stronger from this. well, if you think about it, russia s controlled by bandits, by clans. and they re dividing resources, dividing power. putin thinks he s a puppet master, he can control them. but at some point, they have a lot of money, they have a lot of
weapons, and it s getting out of control. i think he probably was very nervous about it. but they work very closely with gru, his top spy agency. and he has a lot of friends over there too. so, there are a lot of things that conflict was brewing for some time. but the end is just very, very curious. i think we have to be vigilant and pay attention, next steps that prigozhin is going to do and putin is going to do. in terms of the effect of the ongoing war in ukraine, is this an opportunity for ukrainian forces to reassert themselves in this ongoing counteroffensive? well, i think, you know, the front line is still, you know, pretty tough. i think it s important for us to continue supply weapons fast to ukraine because i think it s an opportunity to send a message to bandits right now that united states is serious. and then they will not be able to take advantage of some situations happening there too. and i think that is the very if you think about it, this is
i d say this from an intelligence standpoint, any time you have a nuclear power the in a situation like this, you get real sensitive about the status of their nuclear forces. so, that ll be, i m quite sure, uppermost in the minds of the intelligence community. was there at any point, do you think, this weekend the threat that russia s nuclear weapons were at risk? no, i didn t. i didn t. and i felt that way from ever since the invasion. despite the threats, that obviously the probability of usage of nuclear weapons is not zero, but it s still pretty low. and i don t think this situation changed that. u.s. intelligence folks have told me for some time that if putin were to lose power, he s far more likely to face a threat from his right flank than from any sort of progressive inside the country.
if he were to leave power, what kind of person, shall i say, from what category, would be most likely to replace him? would it be someone more aggressive? well, i think it would it would all depend on the circumstances of his departure, if he were to depart. i ve always you know, he does have a close inner circle, which is held together pretty well. i ve always wondered about his national security adviser equivalent, as to whether he might emerge. but a long-time crony, kgb crony, of putin s. but i agree with you. of the two theories, an attack of some sort from the right is more likely than the left. final question if i can in terms of the effect on the ongoing war in ukraine.