for a long time. he uses maybe one part of his leadership. he was up one day then the other day, pushback on somebody else. kind of the classic divide and rule. i think prigozhin was a handy tool for him to put pressure on shrug you, maybe you blame shrug you or others for what was happening. but it is obviously gunning out of control. he thought he could control, now he can t. how does this and do you think? like i said, i think in the short term he will be able to squash this. but in the long term, dictators, it s when that shrink in the armor shows that things start to change. he has control moscow through fear for 20 years, just like in eastern me in other places. once they start to change, people become not afraid anymore. or they see the possibility of change, then things may spiral out of control for dictator. this is a really dangerous time for people. all right, thank you so much for your expertise. we appreciate the time. it is the most dramatic threat so fa
regulates will join them in whatever they re planning to do, or stay in the barracks and refused to come out against them. we have seen this before in history, 1917 we saw this in 1991. when you win over the military, how you perceive this kind of thing, we don t know that. there s a lot of evidence that there is discontent in the regular armed forces in russia over this war and how it has been conducted. prigozhin taps into that discontent, week he criticizes shoigu and the military establishment, he s making the case that they have made you, the russian soldier, the cannon father. why should you do that? you could see the possibility there, he could pick up support. i think that s what the kremlin was most worried about. admiral, what shape is the russian army in as they face this according to prigozhin. he said i got into rostov-on-don, that key southern military help and i didn t have to fire a shot. that is what he is saying.
for a better tomorrow, we re focused on making plastics better today. following breaking news coming out of russia, this video we ve been showing you, we now understand that a fire erupted in southern russia. this at a fuel depot after reports of an explosion there. firefighters are working to put out the blaze right now, it is happening in the city of verona. that is halfway between rostov-on-don and moscow. about six hours south. you can see that right there on the map. which, by the way, is one of the wagner group s stops in their march to moscow. we have reports that they ve also been in love pets. joining me now is democratic congressman mike quigley of illinois, co-chair of the congressional ukraine caucus. representative, thank you for being with us, you re a member of the house intelligence committee for several years.
these are some pictures of moscow, of the area around moscow and in russia. this is not ukraine as the pictures up until today have been so different. we ve been following this standoff underway and perhaps the biggest conflict that we have seen in russia since the early 90s. we have a panel of reporters and analysts ready to go, all to cover the days developments and tell us where this might be headed. we begin with nbc s kelly cobiella, these developments in russia have been extremely dramatic and fast moving. what can you tell us about what is happening there right now? well richard, just in the past few minutes, the russian foreign ministry has released a statement saying that the west should not take advantage of russia s domestic situation. clearly, acknowledging that
we look at the strength of the wagner mercenary group, what is your thought on this? what are their capabilities now that they have actually shifted allegiances if you will admiral, in the conflict in the region. first and foremost, the wagner group is a cut above the conventional russian armed forces. principally because they tend to be contract soldiers who are well paid, have been a very successful in a number of campaigns all over africa. they were the victors of bakhmut s such as it was. so they are better fighting force i would say. man for man. as they run up this road against largely conscript armies. but, as they get closer to moscow, the more elite russian conventional forces that putin