by now. w ben, thank you for being here. what can you report in terms of president zelenskyy s response to these events thus far? reporter: yeah, president zelenskyy has put out a message on social media in which he basically says russia s weakness is obvious, full scale weakness. the longer russia keeps its troops and mercenaries on our land, the more chaos, pain and problems it will have for itself later. certainly, what we re seeing is that this invasion that began back in february of last year, that the russian leadership thought would last for a few days has turned into an utter catastrophe. in addition to the string of military defeats they ve suffered, now we see these huge divisions within the various branches of the russian military, whether it s mercenaries of prigozhin or the troops of the ministry of defense, basically on the verge of fighting with one another. the ukrainians, obviously, see
those strategic bases with strategic weapons, i would be looking very, very carefully to see if those facilities remain secure, remain in russian hands. the worst-case scenario, the fear that has plagued decision makers for generations, since the collapse of the soviet union is a understood. lieutenant vindman, we know you re traveling to kyiv. travel safely. thank you for being here. thank you. for months, the u.s. has been tracking the feud between the kremlin and prigozhin which has boiled over into what putin is calling an insurrection. how will the biden administration respond to these events? that s next. i hired d local tal. ifif i knew about upwork, i would hahave hired actually talented people from all over the world. instead of talentless people from all over my house.
says that we, the soldiers of wagner were fighting in the war and that we were attacked by the ministry of defense, and the ministry of defense is out to get us and they are the most corrupt, that part was out. that part really was broadcast to show that, you know, our great military is now being targeted by this by these former prisoners, that prigozhin was being in charge of. it s partial, but another thing, you can t get any other information. i m shocked i have a signal talking to you because especially in the center where i am, around the kremlin, a lot of signals are being blocked all together. gps is not working and so on. we were eager to get you on the air quickly for that reason.
this as sort of christmas in june for them. suddenly, they are in a position where the enemy that they ve been fighting for so long seems sob to be falling apart in terms of their leadership. what is important to keep in mind, michael, is that prigozhin now is in control of the southern military headquarters for russia in rostov-on-don. that s the sort of command and control center for russian forces in southern ukraine. now, he says that his troops, his men are not interinterferinh the operations there, but it is hard to see how the control center can operate in the absence of the contact with the ministry of defense in moscow. it s a chaotic situation for russian forces and for the ukrainians, it is a golden opportunity. with all their troops and
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