truthfully, the prigozhin-wagner group is mostly an infantry force. in other words, dismounted soldiers. they have some conventional equipment, but they certainly don t have fighter bombers or ta tanks in the scale of the rest of the russian army. but there s increasing protest movement inside of russia, as well as some of the groups that have attacked within russia from the ukrainian side. i think you re seeing a putin that perhaps is taking a lot of hits from a variety of different angles. and i wouldn t bet on either side, to be honest. if it was prigozhin versus the entire russian military, it might be an interesting fight. but i m not sure who would come out on top. but notwithstanding that, it s going to certainly be a benefit to the ukrainian counteroffensive. okay, we re going to talk about that right now. general hertling, thank you so much for your expertise. let s bring in ambassador
what effect is that having on morale in russia? not just in the military, but broadly in terms of support for the war in ukraine? alison, good question. we don t really know. we know the kind of things you just said. 100,000, even 200,000 families have lost soldiers, have lost brothers and fathers. so that s got to be weighing on a lot of russians. but when you look at the polls, the polling that is done, if you can put any credence into these polls, the russian people up until now have supported putin. however, when he s challenged, as you pointed out, he s made some big mistakes militarily. he s not done well on the battlefield. if he s now got problems within his own military structure, not within his army but within the military structures, people are going to lose confidence. people could well lose confidence. and when a dictator loses the confidence of people around him,
pleading with prigozhin tonight, was a young lieutenant colonel in the tank unit that fired the first shot at the russian parliament. he spent several months in jail in a gulag, because of that last coup attempt. now he s on telegram asking for support for mr. putin as this continues. that is interesting history and context, general. we re trying to get real information in. as you point out, it s very hard out of russia. russian tv interrupted their regularly scheduled programming to denounce prigozhin s claims as basically unreality. and so how will the pentagon figure out what s actually happening there tonight? first of all, they re not going to rely on russian tv for any truth-telling. the u.s. intelligence community probably has a much better feel for what s going on than we do, but i would also suggest certainly a better feel for what s going on than even mr. putin does. they have intelligence human
the head of the mercenary wagner group, yevgeny prigozhin, for calling for an armed coup in russia. president biden has been briefed on this situation. we re told national security officials at the white house are closely watching developments and not weighing in until they have a clearer sense of what exactly is happening. let s go to cnn s senior international correspondent matthew chance in kyiv. reporter: tensions are coming to a head with the wagner leader threatening to attack russian troops in retaliation for what he says was a deadly strike against his own paramilitary forces. in extraordinary developments tonight, the russian security services are accusing prigozhin of starting a coup attempt and have launched a criminal prosecution against him.
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