and, frankly, he has experience. prigozhin has been involved in staging coups, nurturing coups in africa. he knows how to do this. he knows that speed is essential, and to get to moscow, the kremlin, is critical. colonel that is what he is seizing on before the russians get their footing. colonel, i m about to get a report from the white house as to the response thus far, if any, from the biden administration. a quick final question. if you were in your old job, what would you be advising the u.s. president to do now, if anything? so i would have, at this point, already have done contingency planning on this scenario. what happens if there is an internal fracture, either from elites or from the military? i would be looking at, you know, options off michelle y shelf on respond. the biggest concern is in this territory, there are all sorts of bases, including strategic bases. that gets me very, very nervous.
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 view from the ground is very cautious, this sort of quiet hope for the better and pretending that all of it is far away and not much is going on in moscow. i went around the kremlin, worked for about two hours, and there s very few military vehicles, but the red square is closed. it s really dead shut, as if whatever is happening there is out of bounds. what level of knowledge, what level of information do the russian people even have about that which we re discussing today? they have some. they have some. in fact, the news were going on about prigozhin s statements, some of it, but only partially some of it about the special military operation. how there was no reason for it and how corruption just made it happen and so on. that part was blocked. but the part where prigozhin
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
okay. thank you for continuing, by the way, to lay this out in bite-sized pieces that many of us can follow. what is it that prigozhin now wants? so my initial thought is that he s likely he was likely looking to replace the minister of defense, shoygu, and the chief of the general staff for incompetence and ineffectively running the war. still serving in putin s interests, basically being the good lieutenant. going after those people in putin s inner circle that have failed him. the folks that have been providing false reports. that, to me, gives precedence for, you know, lieutenants going after folks that have failed the king. in this case, that being putin. but something has been evolving. i think the fact is that prigozhin has felt a sense of impunity with his actions. he s been given enormous amount of rope. i think putin felt there was some utility in prigozhin