the person who could balance the power of the oligarchs in the country. that clearly is no longer true. we have known that his sort of supreme military planning skills have fallen apart over the past year and a half in ukraine and here to have this massive dissent on russia streets, a huge military armed force essentially coming to take battle with his own army, again just shows weakness and also shows the weakness within the military. the structures within the military are riddled with private military contractors like wagner, for the soldiers at the bottom end of these structures, it s unclear who their lines of command are. so it reveals also a flawed and weak russian military more so than i think we had any idea until yesterday. good point. nic robertson, thank you very much. we will get back to you soon. i want to go to our senior international correspondent fred