After a sighting by a Ukrainian drone operator, details emerge of how the Russian mercenary group has been redeployed in the strategic Ukrainian city of Bakhmut it had helped conquer earlier this year. That was followed by the dramatic coup and departure from Ukraine led by Wagner's now late leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Outside the Wagner PMC headquarters in St. Petersburg, Russia, a crowd, including former mercenaries, celebrated leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is believed to have died in a plane crash Wednesday, two months after he launched an attempted coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Some Wagner adherents are convinced Prigozhin is not dead.
The post-coup mystery continues with reports that Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin is not, in fact, in Belarus, but in Russia. A look at what it says about Vladimir Putin's hold on power.
i think, you know, putin s hold is strongest on the security services. you know, the fsb, svr. and prigozhin, once he has moved away from his wagner mercernaries, once he is an exile, he is much more at risk. so i think, you know, this deal, prigozhin may have gotten some of what he wanted, but i think he has made a colossal mistake for himself personally in challenging putin. i doubt that putin allow that to stand. how worried should prigozhin be that he is in belarus, which is a close ally to putin, as we all know? you know, it s interesting the role that belarus s lukashenko played in this in talking prigozhin down and brokering whatever deal caused him to turn back from moscow.
ben wedeman reporting from zaporizhzhia. i want to bring in emma ashford, a senior fellow at the stimson center and columnist for foreign policy magazine. thanks for joining us. let me get your reaction to what s going on right now. could this weekend s challenge to putin s power in moscow have any effect, do you believe, on the war that s unfolding still in ukraine? it is certainly possible that this could provide a distraction, an opening for the ukrainians to capitalize in their counteroffensive. that said, this has been such a short incident. the wagner mercernaries had already been rotated away from the front line before this started. very few troops were redeployed. so it doesn t seem like there is necessarily a significant military opportunity here. so maybe the ukrainians can capitalize on it, but it doesn t seem like it s a certainty. i understand you say that