these messages were coming through. it s interesting, you talk about the state department spokesperson matthew miller. he said it was a new development to see prigozhin directly criticizing the fundamental rationale for the war. obviously he criticizes the war in blistering terms almost every single day. matthew miller is drawing the distinction between actually criticizing the predicate for the war itself. is that distinction fair, and does the state department think this is a big development? reporter: they think that is one of the major developments out of the last 48 hours here. we did hear from prigozhin today who said essentially that the aim of his march towards moscow was to protect the wagner force and to make sure that those who made mistakes in the ukraine were held accountable, essentially we know he believes those are folks in the russian ministry of defense. when he spoke over the weekend, he was also challenging
people come in and say, god, did you hear what happened with prigozhin? unthinkable just a month ago. that may slowly impact morale. it s pretty low. they re sending convicts to die. sending convicts injured back to die at the front lines. i think of an overnight southern collapse where they look at telegram and go, it s gone wrong, i can t see necessarily happening. it will be slower and the key point is when eventually a critical decision goes up the chain of command. will they have to choose bakhmut or places on the front line where ukraine is pushing forward, the people making the decisions have proven themselves to be pretty out of touch with reality and probably not getting along well with each other. that fight for survival will impact the decisions made. forget about how important it is for putin, for russia as a state, they ve characterized this as an existential war of survival.
one of putin s closest allies. absolutely. matthew, you re there with a view that very few in the world have right now. what is the mood? what is the feeling on the streets of moscow right now? reporter: i think that s a good question. it s divided. there s a lot of relief, of course, that the bloodshed and the threat of an armed incursion into moscow, the russian capital, was averted by this deal being done. but there was also a great deal of sympathy with the critique that yevgeny prigozhin made about the conduct of the war in ukraine. a lot of anger that was simmering beneath the surface that yevgeny prigozhin sort of expressed on the part of many, many russians who have seen tens of thousands of their soldiers killed inside russia. so relief, but also anxiety as
castrations. more a reflection of that start of warfare if prigozhin had greater control. the key point in all of this is how prigozhin now, despite the fact that putin has desperately tried to draw this line under the weekend is still out there, still using telegram, still posting these 11-minute critiques about how the war has been a disaster. russians are hearing it. that s the question, what does it mean there? on the other hand you could say, look, the fact that ukrainian soldiers think there was disarray on saturday among russian troops but then reverted back to normal. that s surprising. if you think about what s happening and the days of silence from putin, that the front line sort of operated i don t want to say functionally because i know there s been issues all along, but in a sense sometimes they re not allowed cell phones so they may not know. that news will filter down when
well about what this uprising, this armed rebellion may mean for the country in the near future. matthew, thank you very much. matthew chance in moscow tonight. in ukraine, the big question, right, the attempted rebellion, all of it. it s all because of putin s invasion of ukraine. we re sitting here in the capital kyiv tonight wondering what will happen to the war here? what does this mean for the war? today ukraine says it captured a new settlement, it s making gains along the front lines in donetsk and making progress around the city of bakhmut. nick paton walsh is with us and we re together in kyiv. interesting in bakhmut, talking to soldiers there, they thought there was initial panic on the part of the russian forces but then quickly went back to business as usual. unclear how russian soldiers are responding to this. what do you think this means for the count offensive?