continuing now, cnn s breaking news coverage of the volatile situation in russia in the wake of a rebellion by the wagner chief, prigozhin. dramatic video into cnn shows a russian defense ministry helicopter fired at from the ground. vladimir putin has been forced to admit one of his main military hubs, rostov-on-don is out of control. putin has held an iron grip on his country for 23 years. could this be the beginning of the end? joining me now to discuss this, kurt volker, former u.s. ambassador to nato who served as the special representative for ukraine negotiations from 2017 to 2019. ambassador, thank you for being here. big picture, what are we looking at? for one thing, you re seeing the beginning of the end of russia s war in ukraine. wagner forces, which has been the most potent force in ukraine, are now in russia, fighting against russia.
fight in the west, they try to reduce the attribution to the state, to putin s government, by outsourcing some of the conflict. they basically start to rely on oligarchs and oligarchs developing kind of tricks and tools to fight in this hybrid warfare against the west. one of them was this disinformation enterprise that s been long running. prigozhin has been sanctioned for that. they ve been playing in the internal politics of the u.s. and europe for some time. prigozhin also established this private military company, was funding it to run coups and mercenary activities out of the central african republic. he was involved in syria. when russia doesn t want to use its own troops, when russia wants to outsource to contractors, it relies on wagner, the most prominent of these kind of institutions. so wagner has been doing this for years, has some very trained
the top brass of russia s military, but the kind of confrontational back and forth between president putin and prigozhin we ve been hearing the last hour suggests possibly, essentially, they re looking to entirely change the government of russia. if they get there, unclear, but their progress is reasonably fast at this stage. the governor of a region points out where this is. it is pretty much half to two-thirds of the way to the rostov-on-don city you re seeing pictures of, in which wagner moved into last night, heading toward moscow. it suggests a fast rate of progress. we don t know how big this column of vehicles is, but it is certainly moving pretty fast. the governor of that region says his police, his laws enforcemen bodies are doing all they can to protect the population, but he s not specific they re trying to stop this column from moving. frankly, if you were a local police officer, why would you put yourself between the seasoned fighters of the wagner group and their target
reporter: well, michael, i think that s their dream vision, but at the moment, it takes time to get the pilots trained, to get planes here, since nobody has agreed to provide ukraine with f-16s. really, now is the moment. one of the problems, of course, at the front is that the russians do seem to have the advantage when it comes to air power. but i think what the ukrainians have on their side, to their advantage, is the fact that the russians are in a state of disarray. the leadership of the kremlin is in chaos. the ministry of defense is involved in this brewing conflict with prigozhin and his wagner mercenaries. really, the planes would be gr great, i think the ukrainians would tell you, but at the moment, they don t have time to wait for that. now is the time to strike, michael. ben, thank you for that report. still to come, dramatic
video just into cnn shows a russian defense ministry helicopter fired at from ground, adding pressure to an already volatile situation. russian president putin has held an iron grip on his county for 23 years, but could an insurrection led by wagner chief yevgeny prigozhin signal the beginning to the end? kurt volker is about to join me. . go betty! let s be more than o our allergies! zeize the day. with z zyrtec. from prom dresses to workouts and new adventures you hope the more you give the less they ll miss. but even if your teen was vaccinated