and russian military leadership, their survival depends upon putin surviving. side suspect that the system will rally and a deal quite brutally and effectively with prigozhin. there is no guarantee of that and if you watch putin in his five minute broadcast in reaction to what has happened, he is obviously very angry, but also rather nervous about the way things have gone. haw about the way things have gone. how do ou no about the way things have gone. how do you go from about the way things have gone. how do you go from a hot dog trainer to leading military force? i wonder if you could give us some context. i can abate. prigozhin ran a restaurant in saint petersburg at the time that putin was deputy governor there right at the beginning of a political career. they got together and got to know each other, prigozhin is in some ways putin s kind of guy. he is tough, he is match, he is the kind of guy that putin instinctively supports and ideas too. the russian
through, do you think? i sort of language carry him through, do you think? i think that in a lot through, do you think? i think that in a lot of through, do you think? i think that in a lot of ways through, do you think? i think that in a lot of ways putin - through, do you think? i think that in a lot of ways putin is l that in a lot of ways putin is not as much constrained by the public opinion as many tend to believe. as a matter of fact, they think as of now he can sell any of the outcomes. if ukraine is a victory to russians, again, mostly thanks to propaganda and high level scale in russia. the problem is in putin s mindset. nobody is quite certain about what is that he is ultimately goal. it s clear he is delusional, he public sector the russian army would be welcome to the and clearly a miscalculated expectation. now he is stuck in a situation where i thus take unpopular measures domestically and declaring war and announce it full scale or at least a quasi mobilisation o
well, look, when you hear the president of the united states trying to make distinctions and talking about minor incursions versus major invasions, i wasn t surprised that it was going to generate considerable heart ache in kiev and that s exactly what happened. i flagged that as soon as biden said it, and then you saw officials in ukraine saying, hey, wait a minute, from the beginning that s been the concern all along that russia essentially can she this is a hostage-taking. you have 100,000 troops on the border and that was the means by which russia has demanded that the united states and nato come to the table and negotiate. negotiate over what? over a crisis they created. and it s really been remarkable to me how successful in some ways putin has been at getting setting the terms of the debate first of all. how many times have you been discussing with me and other guests on the air nato this and nato that?