as raf mentioned, the two of them talking about the situation in russia. zelenskyy speaking with biden about the continued support for ukraine as their counteroffensive continues. he thanked him for a continued air support. the two of them discussed potentially more military aid. he also referenced the upcoming nato summit next month. the stakes of that summit certainly raised in light of this news in russia. we also heard from secretary of state anthony blinken who was on several sunday shows this morning, really talking about overall, what this does to putin s grip of power over russia. he talked about how this rebellion has shown cracks in that power. he also talked about what this means for, you know, going forward, how much that white house officials are going to be looking into, and how much is still unknown at this point. so, we know that at this point,
uranium, oil and gas, all over parts of sub-saharan africa, the middle east, and elsewhere. and i think he does not want to oversight on that. he wants to keep things running as they were. and i think he actually listens the fact that wagner troops in ukraine have been used as cannon fodder. he sees this organization as more elite than that. let me ask you about the u.s. and all of this. you know, there is this devils bargain right now, perhaps, that the u.s. is wanting vladimir putin to be weakened, wanting vladimir putin off the stage, so to speak, in russia. but at the same time, i don t think they want prigozhin or his mercenary force to be those running russia or being involved in any capacity to do with russia. what do you make of the u.s. s strategy here? joe biden last year said, and it kind of caught a lot of people by surprise, vladimir putin can t continue to govern russia. and some people thought, does that mean the u.s. is now pursuing the regime change, when they want t
the relationship is not that i think that the relationship between prigozhin and putin, which was tight, even when prigozhin was challenging a generals. and the defense officials within russia, he didn t criticize putin. but putin called him treasonous yesterday and then disappeared. the fact that that the russian people did not see vladimir putin standing firm. they heard from him briefly, and then, nobody knew where he was. nobody had any idea. it is just not a good look. he s at a horrible point, horrible few days. and it s hard to imagine how he doesn t come out of this week or. i m gonna be fascinated to see how this plays out over the next few days, few weeks, or even the next few days. i was gonna say so many moving pieces, so many unanswered questions still remain answered any questions about the future of yevgeny prigozhin as he makes his way to belarus. helene cooper, peter strzok, thank you very much. we ll be right back with our
senior national security adviser jake sullivan has been briefing president biden regularly at camp david where he s been this weekend. his team is expected to return here to the white house tonight. but i would expect that story to take up a whole new life, really, starting tomorrow morning when more eyes are on this, certainly more questions are being raised as to really what happens now as this continues to develop. and certainly folks on capitol hill will also weigh in on that in the coming days. allie raffa at the white house, raf san jose in kyiv, nbc s keir simmons life for us in moscow to start us off, this hour, as we ve been saying, there s a lot of questions we are learning more about what the u.s. actually knew of precautions rebellion. and as we mentioned, a source familiar with the matter tells nbc news that in fact u.s. intelligence was aware that prigozhin had been planning a challenge to russia s senior military leaders and briefed congressional leaders last week. sec
mercenary force that s made up of russian citizens, basically, as opposed to foreign fighters? and why, more importantly, would the russians use them to do something that the russian military would not want to do? it s not exactly, the russian military is not a beacon of human rights and democracy, or law-abiding what is it that the wagner group can do on the battlefield that russian soldiers may be prohibited from doing, or don t want to do? well, part of it is they don t count in the casualty count, right? so when the russians sell this war domestically, and they say, we only lost two soldiers in syria, well, they are not counting the wagner guys. the same goes for ukraine. even though russian citizens are losing their sons in this conflict, and in conflicts all around the world, i think the fact that as you mentioned, wagner s been fairly accused of human rights abuses, war crimes, crimes against humanity. the russians use this kind of thin veil of plausible deniability. althoug