he was firsthand, what happend, how warmly wagner was welcomed. he is not a man he was a week ago, has definitely lost that lustre and i think he is weaker and he is weaker in the eyes of strongmen that expect, have a particular kind of expectation for behaviour. you don t allow things to boil over, that results in an insurrection. final question, what are the global indications of all of this? do you think, for example, the instability in russia could have consequences for china s relationship with russia? i think there are some indications that already might be true. china has enormous footprints around the world. the ambassador to the uk came out and, you know, advanced the notion that china supports the territorial integrity of ukraine. i think he fact is that russia looks weak. russia has not delivered on this quick lightning war that putin promised to xi early on in the days before the war unfolded.
the strength of vladimir putin s grip on power has now been cast in doubt. earlier today he addressed the nation s military, telling them they had stopped a civil war following the aborted wagner rebellion, and insisted his rule was not weakened. putin also claimed today that wagner was wholly funded by the russian federal budget. he said in the past year alone, since the assault on ukraine, moscow had paid the wagner group around $1 billion in salaries. the us treasury department announced sanctions on four companies and one person who had deals with the wagner group, saying they exploit insecurity around the world. prigozhin was previously sanctioned by the us, eu, canada, and the uk. 0ur eastern europe correspondent sarah rainsford has been following these developments from warsaw. i think what we re seeing happening in today is all about trying to rewrite the narrative and to reassert this kind of image of vladimir putin as a man in control. to try to suggest that throughout this c
necessarily a change in strategy, i think to the ukrainians were quite close to the matter, they certainly understood the dysfunction of this war. they had been watching this fued between wagner, which has tens of thousands of troops, and one of the most formidable military units that the russian federation fielded and, frankly, gave quite a pounding to the ukrainians around the city of bakhmut, even though the ukrainians inflicted heavier casualties the russians and wagner were able to seize it. they have been watching this viewed slowly boil over and the fact that vladimir putin, who could have at any moment put a stop to this, he could have said, i pay your bills, prigozhin, i don t want to hear anything from you, subordinate yourself. prigozhin would have bent his knee. he did not do that. i think there was an
a rebellion against the leadership of president vladimir putin. that mutiny came to a halt when wagner leader yevgeny prigozhin told his troops to stand down, just hundreds of kilometres away from russia s capital, moscow. the whereabouts of prigozhin were unknown until today. belarus s leader aleksandr lu kashenko announced that the wagner chief was flown to the capital of minsk, where he has started his exile. lukashenko discussed his interactions with prigozhin while speaking earlier. translation: al first round of talks lasted about translation: al first round of talks lasted about 30 translation: al first round of talks lasted about 30 minutes. talks lasted about 30 minutes and we talk mostly in swear words. almost only swear words. later it occurred to me that there were ten times more swear words than normal words. he said i m not asking for a lot, let them hand me over, i also need to meet putin. you know putin as well as i do.
of his lustre, some of his strongman mystique. he is still pretty firmly in charge. i think he has some doubts in his own mind about how reliable the military is, how reliable the population is, how warmly wagner was welcomed. he is not a man he was a week ago, has definitely lost that lustre and i think he is weaker and he is weaker in the eyes of strongman that expect, have a particular kind of expectation for behaviour. you don t allow things to boil over, that results in an insurrection. final question, what are the global indications of all of this? do you think, for example, the instability in russia could have consequences for china s relationship with russia? i think there are some indications that already might be true. china has enormous footprints around the world. the ambassador to the uk came out and, you know, advanced the notion that china supports the territorial