international, at the international center for counterterrorism he s author of numerous books, including terrorism, and the financing of terrorism insurgency and irregular warfare. colin, thank you for being with us, i believe the stuff on groups got a report coming out on the wagner group this week. i need you to help me understand this, until now, we have known them to be a mercenary group, soldiers for higher, generally speaking, higher caliber soldiers in the russian military has been able to recruit for itself during this war. but what has happened now? is this, in your opinion, some sort of an armed rebellion or a coup. ? yeah or co up thanks for having, me ali. italy appears to be a crusader motion by this growing streak between goshen and military leaders. up until now, prigozhin has been careful not to threaten putin directly, now it seems he s crossed that line.
did, morning it is saturday, june 24th, i m ali velshi, we begin with the latest in the war in ukraine. the latest is taking place not in ukraine. it s across the border in russia. a town called rostov, rostov-on-don, it s one of the main staging areas for russia s invasion into ukraine. rostov it is under the claimed control of yevgeny prigozhin, the leader of the brutal wagner mercenary force. a force which, up until the last couple of, days was fighting on behalf of, russia notably in and around bakhmut. yesterday, prigozhin s force crossed from ukraine into russia, claiming control of rostov-on-don, you can see it near mariupol at the south at the bottom of your screen. they re claiming control of the southern military headquarters of the russian armed forces. which is located within the city of rostov-on-don. this is important because see where the war is being fought? luhansk?
countries, and on nato countries who have been supporting ukraine, we re in a pivotal moment right now, because ukraine has been trying to break through and make some territorial gains. they ve had some success, but after months and months of getting all the weaponry that they ve been asking for, including the fact that they re now going to soon start to get training on the f 16 jets and get those exits dean jets, this is a shot in the arm that ukraine needs. incidentally precautions are going to be any nicer to ukraine than putin was, he s a bit of a maniac. but, it may give ukraine a bit of momentum. it certainly does, there s definitely been encouraging development here in ukraine. you see this on social media, where people are really taking pleasure in the dysfunction that s happening in ukraine. the main thing that you need to recognize is that this counteroffensive is moving on largely without air support. and so, these type of counter offensives have never really
progression has been fighting in ukraine since crimea, since 2014. it was in donetsk, it was prigozhin s guys who are going in there. he actually has, his abilities and performance in ukraine, whether you like him or not, have been stronger than that of the russian military. yes, as i mentioned, his group is better equipped. putin gave him a green light parts of ukraine. he s for a long time engaged in this war, and he recently, after the full kill scale war, he just showed up and recognize that they were here, and try to occupy ukraine from 2014. we know it is a strong group and they just faced russia mobilize soldiers. another thing to add, ali, this has ducal in the black sea region because,
we re in a full scale civil conflict, we ve got units coming in to fight against prigozhin s forces. it s a total mess, but there s serious implications for what happens next in ukraine, because wagner has been the muscle behind a lot of the territorial gains, including in documents. but further afield, as you mentioned earlier, wagner s active and present in syria, libya. molly, the central african republic sudan, venezuela, and many other places. with this conflict, what happens to russian influence in those countries if wagner is no longer a viable entity there? one of the things there that bring a couple weeks ago, he was the central african republic, demonstrating how wagner actually prefers to work in some of these other places. the seem to like to work clear of the russian military they seem to like to get paid the way they get paid. is half promotions beef with putin about the war in ukraine is it about not getting the