the whereabouts of sergey suro surovikin, who knew prigozhin when they both served in syria for the russian military, prigozhin back then was providing services for the russian military, surovikin was a russian military commander. they knew each other back then. in fact, prigozhin thought surovikin was one of the p best, if not the best general, the only one worthy of a star in the russian military. but this is where the mystery deepens over the weekend. the last we ve seen, and you re seeing him here now, surovikin speaking to the camera looking incredibly uncomfortable, appearing perhaps to read from a prompter or a message held up in front of him telling prigozhin to stand down. this is, you know, sort of questionable at best, and it becomes more questionable when you realize a second senior russian officer made a similar on-camera to prigozhin at the same time. this guy was the deputy head of
battlefield in ukraine the most effective fighting force that russia has had. during the winter offensive, there was one victory and that was the taking of that city of bakhmut. that was the wagner group that did that. of course, prigozhin saw this whole episode as a threat to his force. they were going to force him to sign the contracts, they could no longer recruit convicts in the prisons. that was a great source of cannon fodder for him. that s what lead to this very impulsive, angry decision, which he obviously reconsidered about 200 kilometers from moscow and then backed down and took the deal that allows him to go to belarus with perhaps some of his soldiers. to be sure, lukashenko will keep a close eye on him. because lukashenko at the end of the day is the junior partner in the putin relationship with him. neil: general, i m curious
behind them to maintain the momentum if they can achieve a break-through. i think that they will. i think that they will force the russian forces to start to move. of course, what is the effect of all of this on the morale of those russian forces? when they hear someone who, again is somewhat at mired, prigozhin, because of the way he s been on the front lines, again, in body armor, criticizing the way this war has been conducted. so i hope that it undermines their morale and i hope that it emboldens and strengthens the ukrainians. neil: if they were to try to take prigozhin out to kill him, what would be the fall-out for vladimir putin? well, it depends on what kind of wagner force capability is still around. what he s done already is to divide that force up. as i said, at the very least, three increments, those that sign on, still have a job and less certain about the prospects for continued employment with
to just go in to the ranks with russian soldiers. they saw themselves as special under this very, you know, thuggishly impressive prigozhin who was on the front lines under body armor and kevlar with his soldiers on a number of occasions. a lot of angry outbursts, certainly but very critical of the minister of defense and the chief of the general staff for them not doing this. that they were hanging out in moscow. by the way, on the day of the mutiny, they were nowhere to be seen. so putin is having to re-establish his primacy. we haven t seen what will go forward with prigozhin and putin, noting as i did earlier, this wagner group is useful to russia and calling in to
neil. lukashenko said most of the russian nuclear weapons being deployed to his country have arrived and he says that he s sharing control with moscow. now that s concerning. back to you. neil: thank you. greg palkot. let s to to jennifer griffin at the pentagon. they just wrapped up a briefing. jennifer? this is the first on-camera briefing that we ve had at the pentagon since the thwarted rebellion by prigozhin and the wagner group. after 24 hours of not knowing where prigozhin was, the man that rose to fame as putin s chef has reportedly now been seen in belarus. that according to the president of belarus that brokered the deal between putin and prigozhin. here s brigadier general pat ryder moments ago. it s an internal russian matter. during his calls, secretary austin reiterated that support by the united states for ukrainian will not change and