there was a state of emergency declared. people rose up with weapons. they were driving toward moscow, and there were battles along the way. prigozhin didn t just have an uprising and throw a temper tantrum and drive his vehicles toward moscow, they engaged in fire fights and shot down russian aircraft and killed russian pilots, so they were aware of this mutiny, they were aware of how shocking this would have been. this was, and by the way, it was two months ago today when the mutiny happened. so this is still very fresh in russia s mind. it was the biggest challenge to vladimir putin s authority in the two decades that, over two decades that he s been in power, so russians certainly know it is incredibly suspicious, they have seen opposition figures get pushed out of windows, die from poisoning or survive poisoning,
mercenaries, the weapons and logistical support they needed to win the war and that message resonated. it s clear because he wasn t stopped by the russian military on his way to moscow. he stopped, and then when he turned around, he was greeted by people who wanted to come up and take selfies with him. he had the courage to step, to call the russian leadership incompetent in carrying out the war in ukraine, and i think that was a sentiment that resonated with many residents. it was something that russians wanted to say but didn t have the ability, didn t have the power to say it, like prigozhin did. let me ask you about timing. reporter: this is a major moment. let me ask you about timing because we heard from prigozhin for the first time in a while yesterday talking about what the wagner group is doing in africa. where did we know him to be, one, when that video was released, and then two, what does it mean for the wagner group in africa?
state antony blinken talking about russia s open windows policy, a reference to kremlin critics who have mysteriously fallen from open windows and died. then there was the director of the cia, bill burns, who knows russia and putin very well. a former ambassador to russia. he said that essentially that putin was biding his time. he was trying to figure out what to do with prigozhin and with wagner. and that he said that he would be surprised if prigozhin didn t face further retribution. take a listen to a little bit more of what director burns had to say. i think putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold. so he s going to try to settle the situation to the extent he can. in my experience, putin is the ultimate apostle of payback. reporter: the ultimate apostle of payback. burns said that putin is someone who doesn t like to appear rash, he doesn t like to rush things.
2016 election. but intervening directly was a risky proposition, even for the kremlin, so prigozhin catered to the boss. prigozhin didn t just have the wagner group, the private contractors fighting in syria, he had another side business. it was a troll farm that pumped out online disinformation, mostly against russian dissidents. he now turned his keyboard warriors against the united states. he in some ways contributed to kind of the narrative that grew up around hillary clinton, and donald trump. using facebook, using twitter, using other kinds of ways to try to manipulate information inside the united states to try to help mr. trump win the election. prigozhin had been a jack of all trades for president putin with a bot farm churning out disinformation and his army of mercenaries. it all made him powerful enough or believed he was powerful
flag operations and now you have this. i wonder do you see a sdeliberae effort here by u.s. intelligence to sew discord inside the kremlin? no. i can be that direct about it because of course it s probably within the realm of the certain to say it would certainly benefit the united states and nato if there was more instability, more insecurity inside of russia but right now, the u.s. intelligence community is focused on collection. certainly we re prohibited by law and you simply cannot impact the u.s. audience on that. not to say that the yukrainians or others couldn t try to spin the situation to increase the problems in moscow. but if this reporting is accurate, i think we re dpgoingo see more reporting coming out outlining what happened over the coming weeks. it outlines that prigozhin didn t just wake up and said i m going to head to moscow and head north. he must have at least had or