he s turning his forces around from a march towards the russian capital potentially ending an apparent military coup against putin, but it remains unclear whether the most significant challenge from vladimir putin during his more than two-decades hold on pow er is truly over. the kremlin says as part of the deal wagner fighters will return to base and not face legal action for taking part in the march. the wagner chief said to be heading to neighboring belarus. u.s. intelligence officials tell cnn they believe prigoshin had been planning a major challenge to russia s military leadership for quite some time but were surprised by the rapid escalation of the situation. the white house says it s closely monitoring events in russia and that president biden is being continually updated by his national security team. we want to welcome viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer in london, and this is a special edition of the situation room.
as you mentioned, u.s. officials, you know, they were caught off guard by the speed with which prigozhin moved against the russian military hear. but that being said, u.s. officials have long been monitoring these tensions taken with the wagner group and the russian ministry of defense. and they were monitoring in recent days that prigozhin was perhaps preparing to make some kind of a have ma. again, caught off guard with the so many unanswered questions that still remain. it is clear the u.s. is still trying to gather information about what exactly happened to end this armed stand-off and what are the implications will be going forward. the whole world was caught off guard including vladimir putin. all right. thank you very much. cnn is working all the angles on this situation as the head of the wagner group says he is ordering his troops to turn back from moscow. a nic robertson and retired mark
russian regular army units would join him in that. early on, as we were discussing earlier in the day, they noticed that many russian units did not seem to be challenging prigoshin s advance. though not perhaps joining him. at least not challenging him, letting him pass by. what isn t clear is there was a critical mass of other forces joining him in this challenge here, and that could have been influential factor in what we ve seen just in the last couple of hours there. a reversal by prigoshin and his forces and now seeing them leave, head back to their camps, to their bases. very important, indeed. jim sciutto reporting for us. thank you. cnn s ben wedeman also is tracking what s going on and getting reaction from inside ukraine. he s live in zaporizhzhia in the war zone in ukraine and joining us right now. ben what are you learning? what s the situation there? reporter: well, i must say, wolf, it has ban longeen a long
resources to make another bold and extraordinary move around 2014. founding wagner as a paramilitary group, then operating mostly in the shadows. to run coups and mercenary activities out of the republic. he was involved in syria. when russia doesn t want to use its own troops, when russia wants to outsource to contractors, they rely on wagner. cnn has tracked wagner mercenaries operating in sudan, libya, mozambique, mali and syria, as well as ukraine. prigozhin has by some counts, 25,000 men. many of whom are very battle hardened. reporter: human rights groups say wagner who has recruited from russian prisons to fight has committed a series of human rights abuses including
unfolding. thank you for that report. joining us now, former director of u.s. national intelligence retired general james clapper and a cnn security analyst. general, thank you for joining us. you know, u.s. intelligence believes prigoshin was planning a move against the russian military leadership for some time. so how surprising is it that he s apparently backing down now? well, wolf, i think this is one case where some humility is merited. we obviously don t fully understand what s going on here. this is really a bizarre turn of events. what i wonder about is what putin did to leverage prigoshin. did they get to his family or some significant relationship? to cause him to call this off. this rather elaborate military move, and agree to go to belarus, of all places, hardly a safe haven for the likes of