we can t have these conversations without you, so i know you are juggling a lot of things. but thank you very much for making some time to talk to us. we re grateful. e time to talk to us we re grateful . ,. . it to the to th according to russian state media, the criminal case against yevgeny prigozhin, the head of the wagner group, a private mercenary army in russia critical to russia s ability to wage war in ukraine, will be dropped. that s what they re saying at least. and he will be an exile in belarus. so far, it is not clear if you will actually give up leadership or commands of the wagner group. but he sent a voice note signaling that his forces would stand down. that order comes after a day of putin back negotiations with prigozhin to avoid russian losses inside russian territory. with promises of safety guarantees for the wagner fighters. until just a few hours ago, wagner forces were marching toward moscow. appearing to be ready to wage an armed result against
And the ukrainian army not much different than the russian army, has been fraught with internal fractionalize a shun and enough infighting on their own. so there is a lot of division politically there as well. the prospects are not bad, but i think we need to temper any sort of excitement or predictions, because this has got a long way to go before we see the full ramifications. and i would suggest that progressions move was probably one of the most reasonable moves he could make for himself, having already kind of walked out on a plank, guaranteeing his death some months ago as he started to really voice his criticism against the military and leak russell mouth and shoigu. that also provides a little top cover for putin to frame the debacle, this disaster in ukraine, on the current sort of moscow gang that s in charge of the defense. so there s a lot of unfolding things here, and there s a lot of things we don t know. but for prigozhin to walk away with at least on paper the
You brought us the news literally as it was coming across the proverbial wire of the top of the last hour. what are we learning this hour? so, nicole, in the last few minutes russian state media out with a new report. they are saying yevgeny prigozhin, the leader of the wagner mercenary group, has left. left this military headquarters in this southern city of rostov, which he seized in the early hours of this morning. he s been holed up in that building over the course of the day, surrounded by rings of heavily armed mercenaries. that is the location that he s been carrying out these negotiations, as his forces went north up the m4 towards moscow. russian state media reporting that he has now left that building. we don t know where he s going, but this came about 40 minutes or so after the kremlin spokesman dimitri peskov gave us our first glimpse into the details of the deal that appear, again appear nicole, to have
Everything that the ambassador said. one thing that i would add is there s a huge level of distrust among russian generals and colonels. i have dealt with them a lot, and it s always a musing to me. they trusted me far more than each other. we d be the only ones that would give them an insight into how their own weapons system worked, and how their air defense worked. it was they had a love affair with the americans and not with each other. so there s a huge amount of distrust, which is toxic to any military formation. i think that the trust now has gone up. they all stood on the sidelines they re trying to figure out who was about to win this struggle. prigozhin finally figured out he s lost his cards there, he laid them down. he s s exit-ing stage left, but there s still distrust. i think the other thing that we have to take out of this is that the russian people, he knows far more about this than i do, the economy is in the
But he sent a voice note signaling that his forces would stand down. that order comes after a day of putin back negotiations with prigozhin to avoid russian losses inside russian territory. with promises of safety guarantees for the wagner fighters. until just a few hours ago, wagner forces were marching toward moscow. appearing to be ready to wage an armed result against the kremlin. they got within 125 miles. putin called the move treason. it s important for all of us to remember that the wagner group has been backing up in a very significant way. russia s defense ministry in the war in ukraine. let s bring into our coverage, our team of reporters analysts and experts that join us this hour. starting with sanchez in kyiv. correspondent for the washington post missy ryan, and national security analyst and former director of the cia, john brennan. let me start with you.