sk crisis in russia. i m michael smerconish. putin warns those involved in the mercenary group will be punished. p prigozhin says they killed a, quote, huge amount of his men. a long-time ally of the kremlin, he claimed troops had taken control of facilities in the russian cities of voronezh and rostov-on-don without firing a shot. one general called it a coup d etat, but prigozhin deniesoco. there was an announced a criminal investigation of prigozhin and they were to stop and detain their leader. in an address to the nation, putin said this. translator: i repeat, any internal turmoil is a mortal threat to our statehood, to us as a nation. this is a blow to russia, to our people. so our actions to defend the fatherland against such a threat will be severe. all those who deliberately chose the path of treachery, who prepared a mutiny, who chose blackmail and terrorist methods will face punishment. joining me to discuss is retired u.s. attorney alexander vindman, on the
attacking shoygu and the general for not doing enough. with that rope, prigozhin became increasingly emboldened. i think the objectives are shiftingshift i ing. now, it s clear putin is targeting prigozhin directly. he is saying prigozhin is going to face consequences. the wagner folks that follow him are going to face consequences. it s now an existential threat for wagner to extract major concessions from the putin regime in order to survive. so this is now transitioning from, you know, what i defined as an insurrection for the first roughly 24 hours to a coup, where prigozhin will be fighting for his survival. he is no longer going to be serving as a good lieutenant to vladimir putin. potentially, he might be looking to seize power. it is early days. it is shocking, what s occurred. to me, this is a huge surprise. i was not surprised at all by russia s war against ukraine. i thought this was a distant black swan event, kind of fringe