carriers drove up towards moscow two months ago. that plane that stopped transmitting at 6:13 and if that video is what it purports to be shows when it stopped transmitting is a plane that based on past movements is one that prigozhin has used and flown on many times before. >> and this is key, very key, the data does not show a deep descent before the plane stopped submitting data. it was a sudden catastrophic event is what it seems to indicate. >> and that matches the video. >> where you see the plane falling out of the sky in what appears to be the apparent demise of that plane. >> this is quite a moment at the top of the hour if you're just joining cnn's report. and you see the plane falling to the ground in a cloud of smoke, four bodies recovering, and prigozhin seen there broadcasting a video, that he was on board that plane. a truly remarkable event among a series of remarkable events that we've covered on this broadcast and on this network in recent months, including that day, two months ago when it looked like prigozhin was carrying out the biggest challenge to putin's leadership since he took power and now that burning wreckage on the ground. i believe jill dougherty is also with us now, who himself covered russia extensively through the year. jill doherty, tell us your reaction. you know that putin has killed many rivals before. we don't know for certain prigozhin was on this plane. what is your reaction to seeing this news as reported by state media? >> you know, it is shocking, however, i think it is predictable. many people were predicting that it was just a matter of time, not knowing exactly how it would happen but prigozhin had a rebellion against putin and no matter which way you slice it, putin does not forgive. and so i think this created a couple of months where the kremlin was able to dismantle prigozhin's industry that he had, which included troll farms and the wagner forces, et cetera. that is pretty much under way. so i think this was a good moment to stay good-bye to him. of course, we don't know details but other people have died. i'm thinking of at least one person back in the 90s who died in the plane crash who was a very important political figure. so this is not rare and it will be very, very interesting to see what happens to wagner because the other report, although i haven't been in communication so i don't know whether the second in command was killed as well, but that would give total control of wagner and its work in africa and many other places back to kremlin support and people. >> very important point there. i think also we have to look at the context to which this is happening as we are still searching for some details here. what we do know is according to russian state media, we're saying we do know he was on the passenger list for this plane that appears to have crashed north of moscow, jill. listen, in the last two months, exactly two months since this sort of mini coup that petered out since it happened but obviously not something that vladimir putin wanted, you've seen a purge of generals. we learned that a general who we haven't seen since that mutiny, we learned in recent hours that he's gotten the boot. and then this happened there are series of things that just happened here in recent hours that have been in an understated way unfortunate for enemies of vladimir putin. >> and yet at this point i think putin at this point is looking at how he can reorganize control of the army, control of security forces because as we've been saying, even though they are holding the line with this counteroperation by the ukrainians, they're still not doing very well. the military is not doing very well and there is a lot of criticism, not only from people that say on the outside who are criticizing this war, but people inside russia who are really extreme and want the war to be waged even more brutally. i think it was churchill who said fighting under the rug, dogs fighting under the rug, and if you don't know exactly where it's going but you can certainly say that some people, at least one important person who was a major figure and not really controllable either. i would add that prigozhin hasn't exactly been quiet on social media since this happened. so he was i think a threat to putin, at least his message was a threat. and ultimately this may be what happened, we don't know, but that putin got rid of him. >> it was russia state media reporting that prigozhin was on the passenger list of the plane, we don't know if he was on the play. video of debris of that plane shows the plane engine and that a registration number on that engine, the last four digits match that of a plane belonging to prigozhin and that as we mentioned early, cnn has tracked him using such a plane on prior trips in and around russia. again, more information connecting that plane going down there as you're seeing in the video and then the wreckage of which we'll show momentarily there on fire, but that video coming in to cnn shows a registration number on a jet there that matches information tied to a jet owned -- not just owned by prigozhin but one that he has traveled on before. >> and let's go to nick paton walsh. i understand you have some reaction from ukraine. the big question is how is this going to shape the dynamics of this war? what are you hearing from your sources? >> reporter: we've had a lower level official, an adviser to the interior ministry, he has said if prigozhin's death is confirmed, i think it will be fairly certain putin gave this order. he was not going to forgive the humiliation by prigozhin where they walked the wagner tanks on moscow. and he goes on to say perhaps another russian commander associated with prigozhin might want to assure that their, quote, earthly affairs are in order. this is what you might expect to happen, ukrainians seizing upon this moment, the possibility that prigozhin is dead that we do not know at this stage to be the case. but it's important to point out that his role in the war here was significantly reduced after that. he went against the russian top brass and said you are not doing a good enough job in this and challenged putin in ways that even prigozhin didn't think he was doing when he started that move towards rostov in the south towards moscow. so wagner has been reduced from the front lines. western officials have suggested that their fund being has begun to collapse. putin was very open how they had essentially given billions to prigozhin to build their presence in africa and fight on some of the toughest places on the russian front lines and occupied ukraine on behalf of russian but russian wagner was beginning to look disheveled. no better words than that when he popped up in a telegraph in of a ka in the last 48 hours, he did not look particularly good at all. the thought what been maybe prigozhin is out of favor with the kremlin, maybe has too much political currency for putin to arrest him or take him out of circulation, maybe he's being allowed to keep going on a localer level clearly with his wings clipped perhaps because of the failure with that rebellion, maybe his men are being in belarus. so the sudden arrival again of prigozhin in africa perhaps explained that might have been the get out for putin, exile in africa for prigozhin. that doesn't really fit with the putin we know massively weakened. he's been on the p.r. offensive, desperately trying to claw back that image as the infallible strong man, utterly fractured by what prigozhin did. it would have been odd to see prigozhin continue in public life, healthy, essentially untouched by that extraordinary decis decision and what we're hearing today is in keeping of what we know putin was about but we know so little about who was on that plane and where prigozhin is now. i would not be popping up in public if i was prigozhin to tell anybody where i am now and that i was safe. >> it might not be possible. and there was the possibility that putin could come out stronger to those willing to challenge him and there's been black humor you've heard from senior western officials describe prigozhin's situation going forward. this is what antony blinken said last month. if i was yevgeny prigozhin, i would be very concerned, nato has an open door policy and russia has an open window policy. and there's a hard record of that. there are a number of folks who have died in various ways from poisoning -- >> politicians, business leaders, the list goes on and on. >> inside and out of russian territory frankly. bianna golodryga is joining us on the phone now, has covered the events of this war and russian leadership. as you watch video of that plane falling from the sky, like a stone, a smoke trail behind it, tell us what your thoughts are. >>. >> reporter: i like so many others, jim and brianna am surprised but not so much. ever since that failed mutiny two months ago, many have speculated that there wasn't long for prigozhin. and putin froze for a good 24 to 48 where we saw nothing really transpire in russia, wondering why he and his troops were able to get as far as they did, marching towards moscow. essentially this was a situation that appears. again, we don't know many of the dough tails, just the news information that we're getting from russian state media, it appears that putin and the kremlin decided to take their time here and not make prigozhin look like a martyr. his approval numbers went up in russia. prigozhin all along said this wasn't a mute any or a coup against vladimir putin, it was just against the military leadership, which he believed were doing a poor job in this war. having been said, he was not somebody who could not be c contained as he was an independent quasi entity controlling the wagner group and it took that failed mutiny to say that wagner had been an arm of the russian military. we know prigozhin just a few weeks ago met with african leaders in st. petersburg, another curious situation where we saw photos of him shaking hand with african leaders. this may be well be they wanted to get their ducks lined up specifically in africa. as we heard, the number two in command also recently died and just hours ago we heard that the general, who many would say a is competently removed. they say he's on vacation. this war has been difficult for ukraine and vladimir putin has a, quote unquote, election to prepare for coming up next march. so his numbers, his approval ratings, if you are to blow any of these pollsters in russia, even the independent ones have gone up. he still hasn't recovered fully but he survived this failed coup and failed mutiny. about 20% of russians follow this war on a daly figure and that's the lest and we discussed it was a perfect time to do what many are not surprised to hear. >> well, as you say, the phrase put russian election in quotes because we know they do not operate freely or fairly there. we do have news that the russian state authority has begun investigating the incident with the 135 aircraft. we should note that you have to take the word of the russian agency for their past word holding credible investigations, you look at when that plane was shot down in 2014, not a great reputation of reliability. fred, tell us what more you're hearing. >> reporter: hi there, jim. i've been in touch with some folks inside russia who are very pro kremlin and one is a former adviser to putin, and who is close to wagner and we can sort of see a narrative that seems to be forming among some of the folks who are saying perhaps ukraine might have been behind this. i was myself quite surprised to hear that. he said that he believed that this could be a ukrainian intelligence operation on ukrainian independence day, another russian also telling me budanov can it, who is the head of ukrainian militants. and that seems to be sort of a narrative that is forming right now among some of those pro-crp pro-kremlin figures. we're going to see how that develops in russian state media. i thought one of the really interesting things i heard from brianna is there have been sort of purges and one of them was sergei soravikan. it was said he was discharged with all the aerospace systems. if you look at the plane coming down, it certainly looked like had it been subject to something very catastrophic. all of this impossible to say what's really behind it. but and losing her job in positions that are key to air transportation safety. then you have this incident. very difficult to ascertain what exactly is going on but we do see in russia and russia state media a narrative unfolding seemingly trying to pin this on ukraine and at the same time others are saying possibly vladimir putin himself is behind this. >> and there is a history of flooding the zone with misinformation and disinformation. woe saw that in the wake of 2014. it's a time-worn creme lun strategy. fred pleitgen in berlin, thanks so much. brianna. >> we are taking a hook now and, as you know, we are looking at this video that appearances, falling out of the sky, in the tavare raejon the russian news agency has provided this video saying it shows a plane matching the size and shape that is falling from the sky. the plane had reached according to preliminary commission of data from the plane 28,000 feet, that it was moving at 590 miles per hour when publicly available flight tracking data suddenly stopped transmitting southwest of the city of tevare. i want to bring in richard quest to talk about what we are seeing. some pretty interesting stuff here, richard. one of the details that stands out to me is this data that was publicly available and pretty amazing we were able to learn about it so soon, the data does know show a steep descent before the plane starts transmitting data. >> the starting point is, brianna, planes at altitude do not fall out of the sky. that is the starting point of any discussion about what happened to this aircraft. in the normal course of aviation, once a plane reaches its altitude, it is at the safest part of its flight. the engines are not stressed, it was toodling along, as was this aircraft at 28,513. so you've got to ask yourself what sort of incident, accident, action deliberate or otherwise would cause an aircraft to suddenly, literally, fall out of the describe. once you move into that realm, you're in a very different area. you're literally talking about a few things, about total failure of the aircraft. why should that suddenly happen? you're talking about pilot error. that's air france 447. but there are other things going on as well. again, you had a descent. when a plane falls out of a sky in such a fashion, it's usually been brought out of the sky. and the problem here is that the investigation is going to be done by the authorities in russia under international laws and regulations and unless, frankly, embraer or some of the other authorities, the ntsb or the caa or any other authorities, the atsb get their hands on it, we will never know. you also had the polish president who's plane crashed once in and that's why i say planes don't fall out of the sky unless somebody brought it out. >> is russian state aviation -- the russian state aviation authority is creating this special commission to investigate the circumstances. do you put it sounds like no stock in that. >> same thing for the polish president. they created an investigation, which looked into why that plane crashed when he was on his way to the funeral and there's all sorts of disputes about what actually -- who they blamed in the end and you got -- i've read the report, read both the reports, the dutch and the russian and chalk and cheese. so unless -- the difficulty here and people will be able to join in. the difficulty here is that embraer is the manufacturer and brazil is the state of manufacturer. if this is an iko investigation, which it may or may not be, then the contracting state, the operating state, the state of manufacture can have manufacturers and they may want to get their hands on the wreckage but who knows what the -- who knows what the russians would hand over to them. >> yeah. such a good point, richard. i want to bring pete into this conversation. you've been looking at some of this publicly available flight data. let's talk about that as we go through some of the images we do have available. >> let's pause it. >> let's pause it. >> this is pretty telling to me. i'm going to let it rerack here. you can see this is an airplane in freefall. this looks like a streak of fuel. this this was a shoot down, we're just speculating, a missile would lock on to typically the hottest part of the airplane. this looks like an airplane broken apart, spinning down, traveling upside down inverted. >> let me ask you how strange it would be for an airplane at 28,000 feet, cruising altitude to suddenly break apart and transmit no more flight data. >> unusual failure. let just talk about a structural failure. if the airplane broke into several parts suddenly, if there was a catastrophic failure of the airplane itself. those were extremely, extreme lip rare. especially when you talk about an airplane like this. we're talking about a private jet but it is also an airliner that's used very commonly around the world and reliably. so there's no real track record of anything like that ever happening with an airplane like this. if that did happen, you would have heard about it and also there would be a huge international response to pause the flying of something like this. look what happened after the max, there was a software issue. if this happened, the plane would not be flying. there was an engine we're able to see in some of this video some of the registration parkings on the video here. it's not in the -- it's on the phone video but rather in the video of the crash site. >> i think we do have that one but we don't have it loaded. >> we're able to deduce a little bit here -- this is the video now of the engine on the left side of the screen there, that vertical video, the registration parkings typically printed on there. you can make out the number 2795. this airplane that was registered to prigozhin, tail number 2795. this was likely an airplane belonging to prigozhin, the wagner boss and the data is really interesting. it tells a lot here. the data says this was flying at 28,000 level, level of cruising altitude, 513 knots, 585 miles an hour, stable speed, not climbing, not descending. not something where there would be a catastrophic emergency where you would need to descend very quickly and get down to breathable air very quickly or headed northwest on a 306 degree heading, west northwest, wasn't turning, wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. so this sort of says that this airplane was in a normal cruising position, that nothing was really going on. so of course not only will there be an investigation here by the federal authorities in russia, but also we'll wait to see what other agencies ultimately glom on to this. i've reached out to the federal aviation administration here in the u.s., i've reached out to the national transportation safety board, sometimes they're party to especially international investigations that have a lot of heft. so they have not necessarily been contacted just yet, we'll wait to hear from them as this sort of unfolds but a lot of key data here. they're still analyzing this data and it's potentially incomplete. only because the way they gathered data and using transponder centers may be spotty. so there may be data that could bring in answers to these questions. >> i do want to give people a sense. as you said, this is a commonly and reliably used plane. people will recognize this. if they have flown, they have flown regionally, they are going to know, i think i have been on one of these, right? >> right. >> the private version is called a legacy 600. the commercial version is called an erj-145. >> maybe less shiny. >> between newark, d.c., places like that. >> and we're talking about this is how close it is to moscow, slightly northwest. we don't know the flight path exactly. we just know this is similar to this plane making a trip to st. petersburg where it has flown many times. >> it was on that heading. you can deduce once the airplane gets up to altitude, you set the auto pilot, barring any sort of reroutes or changing from air traffic control, the plane's mostly going to go in a straight line. we were able to see at least from the data right now that it picks up just northwest of moscow and it drops off just southwest of tver. there's a pretty good sample size that shows it plane flying along no problems for a relatively long period of time. >> and then it falls out of the sky. a lot of questions of course, 28,000 feet, cruising altitude, flying straight, no problems and then it stops transmitting data as it falls out of the sky. >> it's reported that yevgeny prigozhin was on board. we're getting reaction from the national security council spokesperson, saying if prigozhin was on board, it would be no surprise. i received a reaction from the estonia prime minister. estonia sits right on the border, has many reactions with the kremlin, including hostile ones which says, if true, putin will eliminate opponents and that spooks anyone thinking of expressing opinions different than his. julia jaffe has covered russia for a number of years and written extensively about the putin regime. you know putin has a history of killing, taking out opponents. what is your reaction to what we're seeing so far? >> well, my first reaction, jim, is that we know and we have known for a while exactly how vladimir putin thinks about specifically traitors because prigozhin was not an opponent. he was a traitor. putin has said traitors will end up dead in a ditch. this is one way to get to a ditch. you and i were in aspen last month where cia director said if he was prigozhin, he would not fire his food taster. everything knows putin. this is how putin views traitors and he will not stop. just because prigozhin had a couple months to walk around and recruit troops to go to africa, there was always this sword over his head. >> and putin attempted to kill a former kbg agent who turned himself over to british authorities. he tried to kill him with nerve agent and he successfully killed another opponent. there is no worse crime to putin to be one of his guys and then betray him. >> julia, i wonder what you make of the various developments that we have seen here recently, the general getting the boot, someone whose loyalty to putin was questioned in the wake of the coup, putin recently purging a lot of generals. there's been a pattern of him cleaning house here in recent months. >> yup, and this seems like the last bit of clean-up that was left. it seemed like in the meantime putin cleared up the people who were directly in his chain of command so with the military, we still haven't seen sorokin, we haven't heard from him. people in the u.s. government are telling me he's like lly in detention and we got confirmation that he was in fact fired from his post. it seemed he knew about the mutiny beforehand, but prigozhin was walking around like a free man. he was photographed with african leaders at the african summit. he posted a video this week looking like he was in africa saying he was recruiting fighters, "strong men" to go to africa with him. it was like why is he still walking around? is putin going to let him get out scott free. today is two months to the day that prigozhin announced his march of fairness in moscow on june 23rd. putin loves anniversaries and he hates traders. >> this is new video from the crash scene, a little closer view of what is a catastrophic crash. you can see in the last frame there some of the cockpit there. russian authorities said a short time ago they recovered four bodies. the russian investigative committee said it lauchbed a criminal case. we should take any criminal case launched by russian authorities or investigation with a heap of salt. evelyn fenway parkus joins us now. evelyn, there's one major thing we don't know right now and that is for certain that prigozhin was on that plane. we know he was on the passenger list for that plane according to russian state media. we also know that was a plane and this is something cnn's own reporting indicate that that is a plane based on edge administration, that it belongs him and that it fell out of the sky. does this look to be an intentional act? >> yeah, jim and brianna, it's interesting because my first reaction is he probably is dead but when he died, whether he died in this plane crash is another question. we haven't seen prigozhin live in person, i don't think -- i mean, we've seen these pictures of him that julia jaffe referred to and the video. we don't know when these pictures were taken, whetn the video was shot. we don't know whether prigozhin was dead, whether he was on that plane. but it is likely if he's not dead, he will be soon. therefore, it's likely that he's dead because putin in the wake of the march on moscow that prigozhin planned, and this is a moment when putin was supposed to be in south africa today, supposed to be at the brick summit, the nonaligned countries, brazil, russia, india, china and south africa. he couldn't go because there was an arrest warrant for him from the international criminal court that the south africans would have had to abide by. that made him look weak. he's trapped in russia. so picking this day, yes, he does like dates that matter. i would imagine he would like this exact two-month date from when prigozhin marched on moscow but he also needed something now to shore up his image. >> and, evelyn, you know, how do you see the big picture here with the war in ukraine? certainly all of these russian casualties and, listen, we have to be clear, there is a lot of internal russian support for the war but there are also a lot of dead russians and a lot of families who have paid the toll internally the greatest toll and there are a lot of people with questions as well inside of russia. how do you see vladimir putin's position right now and what this says about his desire to try to shore up his support internally as he's trying to play this out here for the next year as he's helping to get maybe a little more favorable outcome in the election in the u.s. >> yeah, i mean, brianna, i think most of us when we saw that prigozhin wasn't immediately hauled off to jail or, you know, suffered an accident or was killed by putin, we thought, well, it may be because he needs prigozhin to do something for him. it may also be that he's really afraid of the nationalist and the russian people's reaction. because prigozhin, remember, said a lot of things about how badly the war was going and how the military wasn't providing him with enough ammunition, how the russian men fighting in the trenches in ukraine were being let down by their government. that resonated with the russian people so i think regardless of all the other motives, putin may have been thinking i have to bide my time and take this guy down when i have assessed i have all the control, all the other elites behind me. i have maybe some way to address the russian population that won't make me further weaker. i don't know whether the russian people will take this, you know, in stride because there are all indications that putin is looking to actually do another mobilization. he's raised the military age for men who are qualified to be called up in a draft, to fight in ukraine and he's clamping down on people who want to leave. so this may end up backfiring on him or he may have assessed that he has enough control, he's gotten rid of the generals who would cause problems and other elites who might do so as well and he can proceed. >> we have some more news and it coming in. we're sharing with you as it comes into here and that is the plane which matches the profile of the embraer 600, the model of the plane that appears to have gone down here is seen falling out of the describe with one wing missing. a lot of these reports coming from russian state media, including the detail that prigozhin was on the passenger list of this plane that went down. the reason that we note this detail is that a plane with a wing missing is not something that typically happens to planes in flight, raise as whole host of possibilities as to what happened to this jet in the air that brought it down to the ground, including a part of the explosion or missile strike. >> and what we heard pete saying, is in that strike, a missing strike, it would zero in on the hottest part of the plane be and this would be the engine. so this development is going to raise a lot of questions. >> and it presents the opportunity if someone other than russian investigationor could get to the scene that you could then confirm what kind of missile made the plane down. in the case of mh-17 they were able to pick pieces of a russian missile out of the cockpit of that plane to prove it was a russian missile that took it down. in you were able to get credible investigators there, could you figure out what brought it down. whether it's a missile or not. there could be an explosion on board. there are other opportunities. again -- >> such a good point. >> we're getting these details in and many coming from russian state media. russian state media has an action to grind, is not a credible source on a number of these things but we do have cnn's own reporting to be one owned and operating by yevgeny prigozhin. and tell us your reaction as you're seeing these details being released by russian state media. ia yeah, i mean, first of all, those videos are remarkable with that plane coming down and seemingly having encountered something catastrophic. i'm speaking to folks inside russia who are all saying they believe that plane was taken down by an outside source or something inside the plane. one of the things you guys have been talking about, which is absolutely key is that vladimir putin did view and said that he viewed yevgeny prigozhin as a traitor. and when he started that mutiny two months ago and marched toward moscow. that seems to be where that big break where putin and yevgeny prigozhin took place. before that the two were very loyal and close to one another. and prigozhin was always loyal to vladimir putin. when he did that march on moscow, maybe he did not realize how much he was crossing vladimir putin and what that would do. and he wanted to unseat the top general going to the russian defense ministry and still remaining loyal to vladimir putin. clearly putin saw that in a different way. at the same time it took a very long time for something to happen to yevgeny prigozhin. it was surprising to see him very quickly after that, already resurfacing in russia and then resurfacing in belarus and then resurfacing in africa and reconstituting that whole company and taking it to a different location. one of the things that's key as well is that the wagner private military company once it left ukraine became a lot weaker. we have to keep in mind that they gave up all of their very heavy weapons and gave them back to the russian military. so this essentially was a mercenary group once again, one that could not defend itself, if it came to a conflict there and certainly one that was weakened as well. i think the other thing that we have to keep in mind is while the wagner mercenaries went to belarus afterwards, conducting training for the russian military and seeing with are they wanted to go next, it certainly seemed as though that was always an uncomfortable situation. even said that they wanted to go somewhere else, that they were threatening to invade nato territory, invade poland because they were getting so antsy moving off the battlefield. so really this was not the same organization that it it had been in ukraine. that was also certainly a big pride for the organization. despite the fact that obviously that was very brutal. but i've been in contact with folks from wagner and they took great pride in their performance on the battlefield inside ukraine. so a lot of that was shattered by that and certainly you could tell that yevgeny prigozhin was also a figure who had become a lot weaker than he was before. once again, i also think one. things that we really have to look out for was if yevgeny prigozhin was on the plane but if his second in command was on the plane as well. all the things we have seen from the wagner private military company in the past eight years, inside syria, i saw them in syria years ago when they were starting to operate there. and later in ukraine as well. he was behind a lot of that and that would certainly indicate a complete decapitation of the entire wagner military company and an uncertain future. >> decapitation is the word. >> that would make sense if putin had questions about those close to him. fred's mentioning there the presence of wagner in belarus, not sustainable. so much of what happened after that coup was not sustainable. so for those of us joining us here, a plane patching the description of yef which is a jet what crashed northwest of moscow and from the region where you can see this plane just falling out of the sky and according to observations, it does appear to be missing a wing. i want to bring in retired air force colonel cedric layton, a 26 year in the airport, including much of that as an intelligence officer, what questions are raised for you as you are looking at what are pretty extraordinary pictures that we are getting in here and these details that we are learning? >> yeah, brianna, i think one of the key things was what kind of explosion was this? was it something caused by a missile, like when mh-17 or was it something that happened with an onboard explosion, could have been created by a bomb placed onboard the aircraft. s so that's something that is not quite clear yet based on what we've seen so far. if it's true that a wing was missing as the plane came down, obviously the plane is not airworthy in that situation. and when it comes down like that, and in a normal pattern and that would explain the trajectory as it was, you know, moving rapidly toward the and those are key things from a more broader perspective looking at this power struggle that we're clearly seeing between putin, prigozhin, the wagner elements. all of those things become a key element in what we have to analyze here, why this happened and then also if in fact prigozhin is on board this aircraft and if his second in command is on board, then you get into a situation where the de dec dec dec decimation of the wagner group. >> as the u.s. assess this, the u.s. has tremendous ability to watch the planet for any missile launch anywhere. it can detect the burn as the missile is launch. it's how they determined that a missile was brown down in 2017, so presumably they're looking at that right now. defense intelligence agency has the capability to look to see if there was something that went up before that plane went down or also to detect an explosion on board. and they've used those capabilities to determine that in the past. i was in the room when they determined that a missile was brought down. >> that's certainly an interesting one, cedric. i wonder what you think about that. >> it's absolutely right. what you're looking a the is heat sensitive. it also global in nature and that becomes key in nature for mis missile launches as well as attacks on aircraft. it becomes part of the intelligence as to how these things actually happened and potentially what other things might come up as a result of that. this is certainly a catastrophic failure for the aircraft but it seems very much to be induced by an external force, not something internal to the aircraft. >> maybe we'll get some answers soon because it does seem obviously there's an ability to get them. cedric, i do want to shift gears real quick here. we have breaking news from fulton county, georgia. that has to do with rudy giuliani. paula reed is outside the course in atlanta. >> a moment ago, the legal team just exited the door behind me. they left the fulton county courthouse where they were meeting with the district attorney to negotiate a bond agreement for giuliani and establish the terms of his release. now, we just got his bond agreement and it is for $150,000. he will have to post a percentage of that. he has certain restrictions about who he can and cannot discuss the case with. now, according to the terms of his release, he cannot discuss the case with any of his co-defendants. so former president trump is of course, one of his co-defendants. we know the former president will host a fund-raiser for him in a few weeks. rudy giuliani and others have been in touch with trump about getting more money to help rudy giuliani pay his legal bills. so unclear if he'll be able to walk that line between continuing the relationship and not discussing the fulton county case at all. he's also prohibited from threatening anyone involved in this case. now, he's also prevented from communicating about this case with anyone who could be called as a witness. this is interesting, brianna, because bernie kerik is an unindicted co-conspirator. it is possible he could be call and he's been with rudy giuliani. we believe he even traveled to georgia. they're long time friends and kerik has been helping him try to find the right counsel to handle this case and walk him through this whole process, even though he is not an attorney, as he former new york commissioner. if kerik is helping him through this process but he can't talk to anyone who could be a witness in this case about the case, that could prove a little tricky. the next stop for rudy giuliani who did not come for this meeting, he will head to the fulton county sheriff's office to surrender. that process is expected to include fingerprints and a mugshot. truly remarkable, the idea of rudy giuliani, one of the top law enforcement officials in the united states, now a criminal defendant and soon to have a publicly released mugshot as he is now a criminal defendant here in fulton county. >> in his most recent comments, he really seemed to make a big deal out of what you just said. someone who put away some of the biggest criminals in recent history, i'm paraphrasing. he said, now here he is having to turn himself in. he also said, here they are going after the lawyers and he said that that is unprecedented. but that's not actually unprecedented. we've seen it with watergate. the lawyers do get in trouble when they have do things to get themselves in trouble. >> reporter: absolutely. attorneys are not immune from prosecution. needs are former laufs. bernie kerik is helping him through this. he was ultimately pardoned by former president trump in part thanks to rudy giuliani as we've seen across the country, state level, federal level. just because you are a law enforcement official in no way insulates you. if a prosecutor believes there is evidence to charge you. it will be up to the jury, potentially at the federal level, because giuliani has said he will try to get it to the federal court. it will be up to the jury whether he is convicted. but the idea that he shouldn't be charged solely because you used to prosecute people, that's not the way justice works in the united states. >> paula reid, thank you very much. we'll have a whole lot more on this story ahead and on the breaking news that we've been covering for the last couple of hours. the wagner chief yevgeny prigozhin listed among passengers on board a plane that crashed northwest of moscow. that is according to russian state media. we are seeing these pictures. the tail numbers appear to jive with what we know the tail numbers of the jet linked to him are. so that is significant. you're seeing some pictures just in. we're going to continue to follow this after a quick break. this is cnn news central. please stay with us. being middle cla right now, it's tough making ends mt for sure. republicans in congress say if wjust cut taxes even more for the bigges corporations the money will eventually someday trickle trickle down to you. right. joe biden would rather just stop those corporations from charging so damn much. capping the cost of drugs like insulin. cracking down on surprise medical bills and all those crazy junk fees. there's more work to do. tell the president to keep lowering costs for middle class families. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health versus 16 grams in ensure® high protein. boost® high protein. now available in cinnabon® bakery-inspired flavor. learn more at boost.com/tv from big cities, to small towns, and on main streets across the us, you'll find pnc bank. helping businesses both large and small, communities and the people who live and work there grow and thrive. we're proud to call these places home too. they're where we put down roots, and where together, we work to help move everyone's financial goals forward. pnc bank. . we are following major news this hour. it is reported that yevgeny prigozhin, the man who led the short-lived rebellion against putin was listed among the passengers on board a jet that crashed just north of moscow. this is video of that plane going down, smoke trailing behind it. and then you'll see in a moment, the burning wreckage on the ground. russian state media now says that eight bodies have ten russian state media has said were on board have been discovered at the site. cnn chief correspondent peyton walsh is in ukraine. i wonder what reaction you're hearing from ukrainian officials. prigozhin's forces fought in ukraine. they were some of the most brutal and they were highly involved in fighting in the east in recent months. what's the ukrainian reaction to this news? >> reporter: yeah, let me give you a brief reaction from someone serving right on the front line in the heart of the counteroffensive. initially they said maybe it is time for good champagne. a matter of minutes later said we need to see -- back fire there, forgive me. we need to see the dead body of prigozhin to be sure. that's the ultimate question. exactly, are we going to have ultimate proof that he is dead? we have a manifesto shared on russian state media which lists prigozhin as being one of the passengers on the plane. h