passengers. russian state media reporting that all ten of them are dead and on the passenger manifest for that flight was the name of yevgeny prigozhin. now, we don't at this point know for certain whether or not he was actually on that plane, just the fact that his name was on the list of the passengers expected to be on that flight, but certainly this is triggering a whole lot of concern and speculation about whether this might have been intentional. we know there obviously had been some major tensions between yevgeny prigozhin, the head of the wagner group and president putin, ever since that attempted insurrection by the wagner forces against the russian government, and since that time, there has been all kinds of bizarre, frankly, nations with a deal for prigozhin and his wagner fighters to go to belarus. then all of a sudden we discovered that prigozhin was in russia. he held an hours long meeting with president putin that seemed to suggest optically that they had made some type of peace following the insurrection attempt. clearly that was a humiliating and devastating political incident for president putin. so there has been all kinds of concern and speculation ever since that about what would be the fate of yevgeny prigozhin, and frankly, how it was possible that he was still alive after attempting an insurrection against the russian government. when we last heard from yevgeny prigozhin in the first of his nightly video addresses that was posted since that attempted insurrection, he said at the time that he was in africa releasing this video. talked about russia freeing the nation's of africa. that's obviously a continent where wagner fighters and troops had been very active in recently months. but we're also starting to see some reports on social media suggesting that it's possible there might have been a second plane. speculation that maybe prigozhin was not, in fact, on that plane that went down. now, of course at this point, nbc news cannot confirm that. there's a whole lot of information that is flowing right now that needs to be confirmed and really buttoned down, and that is obviously the case often in these types of situations where the earliest reports are sometimes either not correct or leave out key pieces of information, and so both russian officials and of course those in the united states and the rest of the world trying right now to figure out exactly what is the fate of yevgeny prigozhin, was he, in fact, on that plane. if he was and died in this incident, it would certainly have massive political implications for russians going forward. >> thank you so much for that josh lederman. thank you, come back to us if you get anything new. let's talk a little bit more about what we know, general, and again, i use that phrase actually pretty generally because, again, it's coming from state media. we saw the video that showed what appeared to be a plane on fire that had crashed. there is also a plane that he's known to use, it has a tail number, and that's apparently been seen. flight tracking web sites indicate the flight did, in fact, end where the state media says it ended. and that is in tver. near kuzhenkino. i don't know if you know that region. but they're saying eight of the bodies have been recovered, general, and do you know, general, or ambassador, exactly where that is? does it make sense to you knowing how things operate within russia that the bodies would have been found already, and how quickly might we hear more? >> i defer to the ambassador. >> that's not very far from moscow. it's not surprising that they would have the bodies. while we're on live tv, i want to emphasize what you were talking about with josh. there's now telegram statements from russia saying there were two planes, and the second prigozhin plane has landed in moscow, so i just want to underscore, we don't know those bodies yet. but there are lots of other confirming things coming from russian telegram sources with alleged contacts to the wagner group confirming that mr. prigozhin was on the plane that fell out of the sky. >> all right, let's go to clint, because clint, you are an expert on this, an expert on the media, expert on disinformation. we're getting potentially conflicting reports. what do you make of what you have seen so far, and what should we have as a real caution here? >> i echo the same things in terms of both the ambassador and the general saying we have to use some caution. remember, prigozhin, one of the things that came out right after the uprising, he has lots of body doubles, fake passports, other items, you have to be very careful with that. that second plane having landed, i'm sure there's going to be a lot of rumors, intelligence, about who is and is not on that second plane. some of the key points that we should look at, if prigozhin was killed on that, it's fascinating it did not happen somewhere else, if it was due to a deliberate plot to take him out. it didn't happen in africa. would have happened in russia. if that is the case, that's probably trying to send a signal. separately, i would imagine based on some of the information that's coming out on social media channels, it was not just prigozhin alone in the wagner group, it was another leader potentially named dimitry. if they were both on the same flight it would be unusual. it would be interesting if they were both killed. that would be a form of decapitation, basically of the wagner group leadership in one strike. this comes on a day, as you were noting, in terms of general of the air force being relieved. if all of these things line up, it would appear to be basically the elimination of a lot of the leadership and some of the top ranking leaders of what is connected to the wagner group, and i just think the point that the ambassador made right before i came on about morale and how this shakes out, whether it was a deliberate russian plot or an accident of some sort, the same point, the root of the conspiracy will live on. people will want to know what happened and prigozhin was acting as a populist element, fighting in ukraine. he would go and demonstrate that he was on the battlefield. i think this is going to be of a massive ripple effect, the cohesiveness of it at a time when the ukraine fight is not really certain how much russian combat power is still available and how long they can endure in their defensive situation. >> where do russians go, and including members of the russian military in 2023 and what's the level of trust in russian media? >> level of trust in russian media obviously controlled by the kremlin is very low. telegram has been the place where everyone's gone, especially after the invasion of ukraine. most official russian sources were removed from social media platforms or television and broadcast platforms in western countries and the place everyone coalesced was telegram. i would note that telegram is rife with disinformation, people pushing their agendas from many different directions. it's also where you saw the initial cracks until the foundation between the wagner group and the russian forces after the successful ukrainian counter offensive last year. from that time, you'd see the splitting and fractures in telegram amongst these telegram groups. some would be with putin one day, against him the next. there was a lot of wavering back and forth, the uprising, that's where you got a lot of news feeds, the sentiment on the ground inside of ukraine with the russian forces and also inside russia. it's going to be a dynamic situation. i'm curious how it unfolds on telegram the next couple of days. >> joining us also is evelyn farkas, former senior adviser to the allied commander, and former deputy secretary of defense for russia, ukraine and asia. let me get your reaction to what we're watching unfold, any conversations you have had with others who like you are very knowledgeable about this area? . >> thanks for having me join this impressive lineup. i would say just as they have all said, you know, accidents happen. accidents happen in russia, but most of the time, these kind of accidents are actually premeditated and putin is a man who does serve revenge up cold, and i will note he's at a moment of weakness internationally. he was supposed to be at the meeting of brazil, russia, india, china, and south africa, in south africa, he was not able to attend because there's an interest warrant out for him, an international one that south africa would have had to abide by. it made putin look weak. he couldn't leave russia. so this might have been a moment, if indeed this is not an accident, a moment that he chose to purge prigozhin and the wagner group leadership. >> as of 15 minutes ago, the reports that we have gotten, evelyn is that putin was on russian state television. they were showing footage of him at an event. it was a memorial of some sort of the battle of kersk in world war ii. would you expect to hear from him, and if so, when? >> that is a very good question. i might defer to the ambassador on that one. you know, i would say that putin, he does like to take credit indirectly, at least, for his revenge killings, frankly. this one made him very angry. he went on television, he said this was a traitorous. a stab in the back. those are the words he used. he'll want all of his audience, the elites around him, and certainly other people that he considers enemies to be watching carefully and taking note, but as to what he might say publicly, i can't say for sure. >> ambassador, what's your take on that? >> he's commemorating the battle of kersk, call it the great patriotic war, and in the middle of it he stopped for a moment of silence for the war veterans. that's what he's describing, and that's all he said. he didn't mention mr. prigozhin, and i expect he won't mention mr. prigozhin directly. this will be sold to the russian people an accident. there's no way he will say deliberately and bluntly he killed these guys. they have a long history. prigozhin was doing a lot of putin's dirty work all over the world, in africa, in syria. called into ukraine. so the idea that he would just shoot him out of the sky and that the russian people would accept this, he won't talk about it that way. more subtly though, if indeed it is true, we need to keep saying we don't know the facts, but it will be a sign that if you double cross me, there will be consequences, and that's something putin likes to talk about a lot. he likes to talk about traitors, never forgets them, goes after them, poisons them in foreign countries, and that will be a subtle message that the russian elite will definitely take from this incident. >> whatever happened here, and again, i want to just point out two more things, what we're hearing right now is coming from russian television, general. there are reports there is potentially a second plane. as clint pointed out. this is someone known to use doubles. having said all that, how many people right now do you imagine, general, are sleeping with one eye open? >> probably a good number of them. we need to remind ourselves that putin is not james bond. i mean, these are thugs. they're not very bright. they murder people in hospitals who fall out of an upper story window in their wheelchair. they murder opposition people within eyesight of the kremlin. they send two agents to use radio active poisoning on people in the uk. so, you know, you don't expect a two bound shot when you're dealing with the gru and the fsb and their murderous campaigns. my supposition is if prigozhin wasn't on that plane, he better head for the frontiers because they're going to kill him eventually. they've got to. he invalidated the entire special military operation on international tv. so putin's consolidating control. i think he's doing it pretty well. he took apart the wagner group. i'm sure he will take control of the wagner group elements in africa. that's a money making profit center. he fired the four-star russian air force general, another indication to the uniformed military, you better follow orders, so i think putin's probably in control in the short run. look, this thing is coming apart. the russians have had 300,000 killed and wounded fighting in ukraine. it's a mess. and they're not on the offensive right now. they're trying to defend against a smaller ukrainian force. in the long run, russia's economy, their military are going to get weaker, not stronger. so putin's on shaky ground, and we ought to be concerned about who's next. it's unlikely that a great democrat will emerge from the russian opposition and replace putin. but he's on real in a morass right now, he's got russia in terrible trouble. >> evelyn farkas, obviously this is a man who has been, i think, arguably underestimated before or at least the reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated. having said that, what do we know about his level of control right now and how shaky is the ground he's standing on given what we have seen unfold in ukraine? >> i mean, i would say, chris, that he is on shaky ground. you know, as the general said, russia is on the defensive right now while ukraine is on the offensive. yes, it might be slower than we wanted, but ukraine is undoubtedly on the offensive and certainly strategically, russia lost this war a long time ago, certainly they lost it when they launched the full scale invasion of kyiv and they failed or ukraine, rather, towards the city. i would say that putin is weak, and he's become more publicly weakened because of prigozhin's essentially, you know, unblocked march towards moscow, and the fact that putin didn't takes action right away caused people to question what was going on. the fact that he can't travel internationally. he has been indicted at the international criminal court. all of these things add up. on top of it, the russian economy is really much more publicly in trouble. again, beyond the headlines, we don't know exactly what's going on in the russian economy except when they can't help it, and they have to make adjustments to their currency, to the ruble, when they ask foreigners to convert their foreign currency to rubles, et cetera. so he's trying very hard to play the strong man. but he's in a very weakened position right now. as far as who comes next and how he leaves, you know, anything can happen in russia. nobody's saying that he's going to leave the political stage anytime soon. but he could leave the stage tomorrow. we just don't really know in russia. a lot plays out behind the scenes. the elites are really in control. it's who controls the military, who controls the intelligence services. as long as putin controls them, he's still in control. ultimately for russia, you know, they will have to come to some kind of end to the war against ukraine because it's not going to be sustainable for them economically and politically. that is the reality unless they can pull a rabbit out of a hat and stall for time frankly. >> let me ask you, and i know you have other obligations today, but i'm reminded that, let me look at the date, back in july, july 21st in aspen, andrea mitchell interviewed antony blinken and she asked him about prigozhin to when he said, if i was mr. prigozhin, i would remain concerned. nato has an open door policy, russia has an open windows policy, and he needs to be very focused on that, within the state department, the diplomatic core, what do you imagine the conversations are like right now, evelyn? >> well, i think that they are looking to see who else might be in jeopardy, who's going to benefit from this, again, there is always some kind of jockeying, and certainly in the after math of prigozhin's challenge to putin, you better believe that people were looking around to see how they could take advantage. so clearly the state department's going to be looking and trying to talk to people behind the scenes to get a sense of what is actually happening. beyond that, of course we want to maintain our focus on helping ukraine and helping ukraine, frankly, take advantage of the situation and the war as fast as possible. and essentially make sure that putin's aggressive foreign policy dies the death, again, as fast as possible. >> evelyn farkas, always good to have your perspective and expertise, thank you so much. if i can go back to you in media, clint, the russian aviation authority put out a new statement. just a couple of minutes ago. they announced it had created a special commission that is investigating the circumstances and causes of the accident. the statement offered no comment on the cause of the crash but said the commission is looking for evidence, including black box records. knowing how russia operates, how should we interpret that statement. this is not the faa. >> yeah, chris, pretty low confidence in that statement, and what might come out of it. i'm sure it will be whatever the kremlin wants to come out of it, and if you looked at the different takes, this is very classic of russian media environment, anytime there's something dramatic like this that happens, there are already many many different versions of this story. everything from a terrorist attack to similar conspiracy to the mh 17 shoot down, you might remember very long ago, about ten years ago, there's already a claim that that anti-aircraft missile was fired over an artillery point, and hearing that maybe prigozhin wasn't on the flight. it's going to be difficult to know and understand what actually happened and know some truth around it. there is some video, you showed video of the actual crash site. there's video online. it's difficult to make sense of what it was that actually happened so far. again, i think general mccaffrey noted earlier, we may never know exactly what happened other than we could get some verification, i think, in terms of who was deceased on that flight, and that might happen very very quickly. and we may have some surrounding it. i'm not sure that investigative commission or anything else will ever give us 100% confidence that we know exactly how this occurred today. >> let's talk a little bit about if we can, general, what we look for in the coming hours and days and that will give us at least some clues. different obviously from intelligence, which the united states is collecting already along with our allies, given the implications for the war. what are the things that those of us in the public should know and be looking for? >> of course number one is does putin retain a loyalty of those commanding security forces and interior control? the national guard, fsp, gru, interior ministry, police on the streets in moscow, never mind the armed forces, and i think it's likely that putin has already solidified his control of those institutions and he knows he's safe. that's a primary concern. i think the second thing we ought to understand is ukrainians are extremely good at intelligence. they have got russian speakers throughout russia proper and are running pretty good collection systems. and then finally, we should never underestimate the ability of nsa in particular and the cia to understand what's going on. the u.s. embassy in moscow is diminished in manpower, strength, ability to collect, but the agency and the electronic overhead systems are going to follow very closely what's going on, who's moving. but i think putin's got this one. so probably pretty well done. now we go to worry, who's next as a threat to putin. and is he worse than putin himself. >> i want to also bring in retired general steph twitty, deputy commander of the u.s./european command and msnbc military analyst, and that is a provocative question and a critical one that the general brings up, who might be next. what are your thoughts as you're watching this unfold? >> i'll tell you, i just heard general mccaffrey's comment, and i think he's spot on. i think putin is definitely purging those disloyal folks. one of the things we can't discount, if prigozhin is dead, we must remember he had about 50,000 loyal soldiers to him. that being soldiers that are in belarus, there's some soldiers in africa. and when i say soldiers, his loyal militias. and so what will they do as a result of their boss seeing that they are loyal to him, will they try and step up and fill a void that may be out there? we'll just have to wait and see. >> well, i think it's important to differentiate for americans who have one view of the soldier, the soldier who comes out of west point, the soldier who enlists and goes to fight for the united states, and what we're talking about with the people who are with prigozhin, how people understand the very significant difference there. >> when you're talking about a u.s. soldier, you're talking about a soldier that is a selfless servant to the country. you talk about a soldier that understands rule-based orders and law and order, and a soldier that's going to fight for the country and ensure that no international laws are broken and those type things. in other words, a professional soldier. when you take a look at what prigozhin has under his ranks, he has a combination of thugs, convicts, and other soldiers out there that do nefarious things out there in the world. so it's not a professional organization whatsoever. weave seen some of the bad things they've done in ukraine, we know about the bad things they're doing in africa. it's not a professional organization or a professional ranked military. >> general twitty, barry mccaffrey, i think, is when he says bad things, is being polite for daytime television. but what those mercenaries have done, the level of brutality is inhuman, and i wonder if we have a good handle on where they are, what they're doing, what their capabilities are at this point. >> looks to me like they've been very effective, putin's forces in pulling them apart, and there are allegedly 6 to 9,000, a fraction of their former number. they lost all of their heavy fighting equipment, tanks, armored personnel carriers, antiaircraft missiles. it's clear putin successfully pulled them out of combat and replaced them with regular russian units. and just to reiterate what staff twitty just said, we have been fascinated with the movie the dirty dozen and the notion that hardened criminals are great soldiers. nothing could be farther than the truth. what we want are 20-year-old high school graduates, nice boys, used to playing organized sports, boys and girls, excuse me, young, disciplined americans. so the notion that prigozhin's forces were some elite ss fighting unit was nonsense. they were getting slaughtered. their casualty rates were enormous. they were being driven into combat and shot if they tried to evade. i was watching russian tv a couple of nights ago with two wagner group people chatting away about how funny it was that they captured a polish citizen and shot him mercilessly kneeling on the ground just for the fun of it. so, look, these people are criminal thugs. the russian military is doing actually much better. these people have studied what happened to them and the first year of disaster, using mine warfare, artillery effectively, counter attacking in a local area, and they're digging in. so there's a big difference between the wagner group and the russian military. the russian military, again, 300,000 killed and wounded, these people are in a morass. a desperate situation. >> i also want to bring in michael allen who served as special assistant to president george w. bush and senior director for counter proliferation strategy on the national security council. what is happening right inside the white house, do you imagine, sir? >> i think the president -- asking for fidelity on what's being reported. is it true that prigozhin was on the airplane and what is the assessment of the intelligence community about how long this has been in the works, and what does putin intend by this action? to me, i think it's obvious that putin is trying to reassert control and send a message to the factions in moscow for oligarchs and the security services that he is still under his skin and quite irritated at all of the hot takes coming after the mutiny in june, that the regime was finally showing its brittleness, or that his reign was coming to an end, and he's answered critics with typical dramatic flare. >> we did have our folks reach out to the cia and ask about the russian media reports. the cia declined to comment. we haven't heard anything official coming out of the united states right now, but what are the questions you have right now as you're looking at this very early time in this unfolding story. >> well, first and foremost is verification, that prigozhin was indeed on the airplane. it wouldn't be beyond the russians, of course, to have launched some sort of disinformation campaign and wanted to make it appear that prigozhin had been killed. of course they'll want to settle what seems obvious, which is that if he was on the plane, that this particular plane was shot down as has been reported by purposeful, if you will, antiaircraft, but i think they want to be able to nail down the certainty. they don't want the president coming out as a fact witness in trying to answer the questions that are more properly in the domain of the intelligence of the united states of america. >> ambassador mcfaul, there's a telegram channel that is considered as best source of information about the wagner news group since the two verified prigozhin canals stopped posting. can we expect to get any kind of information, legitimate, reliable information there, do you think? >> yeah, i think we'll be able to figure this out. we don't want to speculate. as we're sitting here. i'm reading lots of telegram channels from various russians that i follow, and some are saying he landed safely in moscow. i don't think that to be true, but i don't know it to be true. by the way, sergey markoff, he's saying that the ukrainians shot this plane down. that's another talking point they're throwing into the mix. i suspect we'll know within hours if he's dead or not. this will not be a mystery that will go on for a long time. what we don't know, and i think we need to be careful about what we know and what we don't know, what we don't know is how this is playing inside russia, how this is playing inside the russian military. at first blush, of course, this is the tough guy putin taking out the guy who led a mutiny against him. remember, russians cheered this guy when he showed up just a couple of months ago. prigozhin, this terrorist thug, i want to be clear, i'm not in any way saying he was a good guy, and by the way, the russian military, they are horrible terrorists thugs as well, killing innocent ukrainians every day. there's no good guys and bad guys in this, but remember, they were fighting on the front line in bakhmut for months. they were taking huge casualties, good fighters or bad fighters, i'll leave that to the generals but in the eyes of the russians, they were fighting in the same patriotic war that vladimir putin was telling everybody that they need to fight in. so now today he shoots out of the air the commander of those people. that is not something that everybody is going to say, well, he had to do that, putin is a great guy, he's our commander, it's going to create lingering doubts among those that thought the wagner group was a just fighting force inside ukraine. i'm not saying it's going to lead to the demise of putin. that never has been the case and never will be, but this is a moment of uncertainty inside russia, not a moment of strength, in my view. if you have to shoot down the guy that was just fighting for you in ukraine, that is not a move of strength. that's a move of weakness. >> i want to go to josh lederman because he has some new information for us. what have you been able to find out? >> reporter: chris, we're seeing a new report from the russian state news agency, which is now saying that emergency services have told them that eight bodies of dead victims were found at this crash site of this plane. now, you remember we have been reporting and russian state news has been reporting that there were ten people who were on that passenger list, ten people who died in that plane crash. this new information suggests there were eight bodies first down. now does that mean that there were two fewer people who were actually on board than were on that manifest list? we don't foe. may yevgeny prigozhin may not have been on the plane? it's too early to know that. this conflicting information speaks to just how long it's going to take to get to the bottom of this and understand what really happened today, and it comes as we're also getting in a new translation from a telegram channel. you were referencing this before. that is a reliable source of information about the wagner group. in fact, since the official wag finger group telegram channels had stopped posting information a while back, this has been the most fast and reliable source of information about what that group is doing. this telegram channel is saying that the second plane we have been talking about is now approaching landing and that yevgeny prigozhin may possibly be on board that plane. they're waiting for information about whether or not he's on the second plane, which obviously would dramatically transform this story that we have been talking about for the last hour and change or so. in the meantime, we're also getting our first reaction from the u.s. government, which obviously has a major interest in figuring this out as well. we are learning president biden has been briefed on the situation, and also hearing from the national security council spokesperson, and if they're confirmed, no one should be surprised. she says the disastrous war in ukraine led to a private army marching on moscow, and now it would seem to this. chris. >> thank you for that, josh lederman. i want to bring in nbc's chief white house correspondent peter alexander who is joining us by phone. so the white house has finally issued a statement at least based on what we have just heard and what we would expect something fairly short, to the point, what else can you tell us from your sources. >> reporter: that's right. to confirm, that is the first we're hearing from the white house, the president is traveling where we are in northern california, he is out, but we just heard from officials that he has been briefed on this. and it's notable because the president has made some comments specific to the situation related to yevgeny prigozhin and vladimir putin. i was traveling with him in finland last month. when he was asked a question specifically about prigozhin, and he said among others things if he were prigozhin, i would be careful what i ate, keep my eye on my menu, he said, but all kidding aside, i don't think any of us know for sure where the futu o prigozhin is for russia, and i don't know beyond that how to answer. clearly right now the white house is keeping a very close eye on the situation. there has not been direct communication following this latest event, but they are watching and they do have skepticism about any reports they see coming out of russia right now. so before they're able to really weigh in with any real, i think, more confirmed statements beyond the statement, according to what russia has reported, they want to have their own understanding, a better independent analysis of what took place, whether or not prigozhin was on board the plane. >> thank you so much. i know you don't expect it, because it doesn't work that way in the white house, but if you get anymore information feel free to call us. we would appreciate it. let me bring back our chief foreign correspondent richard engel who has reported extensively on prigozhin, the wagner group and has traveled extensively in that part of the world. we were having a conversation before, and i'm not sure if you were able to listen in because i have a feeling you have been out making phone calls and doing reporting. ambassador mcfaul was talking about two critical questions, how it might be playing inside russia and how it might be playing inside the russian military. do you have any insights in that or new reporting based on the last conversation since we last spoke? >> reporter: i think this, what we're trying to figure out now, was prigozhin on the plane that went down very suspiciously. there is video of a plane, according to -- and it seems to match with flight tracking data, that a plane took off. it reached over 20,000 feet. and then it suddenly stopped transmitting, and there is a video of a plane, allegedly this aircraft, plummeting from the sky. no control whatsoever. just dropping like a stone. apparently, however, there was more than one plane flying in some sort of convoy. they were flying together. and the second plane is either coming in to land or has landed, and apparently that second plane was also a prigozhin plane a wagner plane, but according to the russians, according to tass, prigozhin was on the first one and that a number of bodies, not prigozhin's body, but a number of bodies have been recovered, including one of the wagner's top leaders, a second in command under prigozhin. although, in wagner, there really was never a true second in command. this was really a prigozhin outfit, a prigozhin cult. there were other enablers, powerful figures, and one of them apparently was killed. >> can i interrupt you right there, because if i can, richard. because clint watts was saying earlier he would find it very unusual that the two of them would be on the same plane. i don't know how much you know about how they traveled or whether they often traveled into different planes, whether that makes sense to you, but what can you tell us based on your experience and your coverage of the wagner group about that? >> reporter: obviously it would not be a good idea. if you're planning a presidential trip, you wouldn't put your key leaders, the secret service would never do anything like that on one plane. spread it out, spread out the risk, but prigozhin was such a unique individual, a strange character, he took enormous personal risks. he went to the battlefields, in ukraine himself. there were video of him near bakhmut, not in the trenches but close to the front lines, putting himself clearly in harm's way, so his cavalier attitude towards security, i think, has to also be taken into account. could he have been on the same plane with the second in command? very likely, based on his personality, although that wouldn't have been a smart move. in terms of the reaction in russia, so many are afraid to react. we're not discussing an open society where they can fwo out and express their views on social media. people are afraid. there's a national state of emergency. there's a draft callups that have been underway, and people are trying to dodge the draft. i think it certainly shows disorder, and vladimir putin is trying to show order, potential, if in fact this is what happened that vladimir putin or the elite ordered the shoot down. it seems likely an attempt to show strength, that you can't cross the leader and get away with it. because vladimir putin's one job in russia is to maintain authority for himself and maintain power for those around him who keep him in power and hold his money. and after after prigozhin rose up and challenged his authority, embarrassed vladimir putin, suggested that the powerful leader of russia that putin likes to project, putin was very determined and has been very determined to show himself in control. if you notice how putin has been behaving over the last several months, he's been more active than ever. he's going out on to the streets. he's meeting crowds. he's glad handing people on the streets. choreographed, of course. he's greeting school children, giving away presents to school children and bouquets of flowers, the kind of campaigning that politicians often do but that vladimir putin hadn't done in years. he had been isolated in covid, increasingly become estranged, only meeting a small handful of people, after putting them in quarantine. some suggested it was because of his covid isolation that he lost track of the inner circle, that he didn't realize how powerful prigozhin had become, and how angry prigozhin was about the lack of progress in the war in ukraine. and how he and his men were being treated that putin took his eye off the ball, and now it seems is going out of his way to reassert his authority. if you have to reassert your authority, it shows that your authority has been questioned. within the military, i think the overwhelming reaction will be good, this is a guy who embarrassed russia, embarrassed the military. he took unprofessional fighters, made them into soldiers in rapid time. turned himself in to something of a commando general, and showed them up. he brought success on the battlefield of bakhmut, success from the russian perspective when the russian military was failing time after time. so when someone embarrasses you that badly, and they're your rival, i can only imagine there is some satisfaction when they go down. but he did have some supporters. and i think that is why. a lot of us expected this kind of thing was going to happen to yevgeny prigozhin, that it was a matter of time. all of putin's enemies and challengers meet a fate like this. they get poisoned, pushed out of windows, down in plane crashes. it was clear he couldn't do it immediately, because he didn't understand what was going on. if you remember, as this mutiny was taking place, putin went silent for 12 hours. he was trying to figure out what was happening, why are these men marching towards moscow. who else is in on it? is this a full blown military plot, and then what about all of prigozhin's money, what about the empire, what about all of his africa connections. once of that got sorted out and putin was able to figure out and the russian intelligence agencies were able to figure out who else may have been involved and how to control prigozhin's empire, then it seems that his usefulness ran out and it was time for putin to try and reestablish himself as the undisputed boss. >> richard engel, thank you so much. your expertise on this is invaluable. picking up on what he said, michael allen, i'm reminded that when he was in, i'm going to say helsinki, he, president biden, and we just heard that brief comment from the white house, president biden said something to the effect that if he was prigozhin, he'd be very careful about what he ate. do you imagine that there's any world leader that there's anyone who follows this who's surprised if indeed what happened is that prigozhin is no more? >> i think i'm not surprised but still shocked when i actually read the news. it was putin strikes again, he's tried to poison his opponents. including in the united kingdom. he's mounted other assassinations and parks in munich and the rest. this is right out of the vladimir putin playbook, but nonetheless, it's a bold, strident move. i think i understand what ambassador mcfaul is saying, it seems like a show of weakness, but at the same time, i think the alternative was worse for vladimir putin. i think he needed to send a message to all of the other security clicks and oligarchs and other power factions within the -- still in charge, their source of funding and protection is still viable and i think that's what he was after if indeed this news turns out to be accurate. >> i just want to play something that a cia director william burns said and this was again, at the aspen security forum when he was asked about prigozhin, take a listen. >> putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold, so he's going to try to settle the situation to the extent he can. but, again, in my experience, putin is the apostle of payback, i would be surprised if prigozhin escapes further retribution for this. in that sense, if i were prigozhin, i wouldn't fire my food taster. >> so similar, ambassador, to what the president said when he was in helsinki, if this is a message being sent. and i don't think we can say this enough, we don't know exactly what happened here and if prigozhin is indeed dead, we don't know that putin is behind it. having said that, if he wants to send a message, whether he did it or not, who's the recipient of the message, who does he want to get the message, most of all? >> well, first and foremost to those he thinks defected and supported prigozhin in his mutiny a couple of months ago. there's lots of speculation about how deep it went. remember when that happened, he marched all the way with no resistance. it was so easy for him to get as far as he did. where were his border guards, his alleged, you know, super star border guards, presidential guards, why didn't they stop him, and that, i think, led to a lot of worry that they were not as unified as they were before. so this sends a strong message. i want to be clear, of course this is better than the alternative of letting prigozhin run around. everybody's been waiting for this day to happen. but if you step back and think about it from a bigger perspective, why did the mutiny happen in the first place? because there's deep division among the russians including the elites about the way they're fighting in ukraine. why did he have to kill prigozhin, a guy he's worked with for several years, because prigozhin and wagner got out of control. short-term sends a big message. long-term, i think it shows the deep disarray you're seeing with respect to this war, and no war, none of this would have been happening. i think that's very important to remember. had putin not invaded ukraine, none of these things would be happening. he would look a lot stronger before. he looked a lot stronger before invading ukraine than he does today. >> i want to swing back to that. for a lot of americans that have watched the war and who knows that a tremendous amount of american dollars have gone into this war, does this provide an opening for ukraine, and if so, how do they capitalize on it? >> i'm not sure it does. the incident itself, doesn't change the dynamic at all. to add to what ambassador mcfaul said, we have to remind ourselves, the russians are very sophisticated people, science, mathematics, ballet, literature, physics, space exploration, manufacturing, the courage of their soldiers is legendary. and yet when you look at the people in the elites that putin has surrounded himself with, to include their minister of defense and the head of the armed forces and prigozhin, prigozhin, as a teenage boy, especially was mugging people on the street. the first crime he got convicted of 13 years was busting and choking out an older woman and stealing her boots and her earrings. this is who putin surrounded himself with. so it's a really incompetent dangerous mafia-like organization, below which you've got the intelligence, who, you know, in st. petersburg and moscow and the population centers are attuned to the west, and understand what's going on, but the majority of the country, i think, is just falling in line behind the czar, mr. putin. >> general twitty, what do you think the reaction is now? how it playing inside the military in russia? >> yeah, there's no doubt that there was no love lost between the russian forces and the wagner group, and so they're probably happy at the fact that prigozhin, if he's in fact dead that he's gone. and i agree with general mccaffrey. i do not think this is going to change the dynamics on the battlefield between ukraine and russia. at the end of the day, there's still 600 miles of defensive positions with mines and all the other things that go along with defending the southern part of ukraine, that the russians have put a formal force against. that's going to need to be taken down to be successful and break this land bridge. i think at the end of the day in terms of ukraine, they still have got a significant fight ahead of them, and it's going to take a while before they get there. >> as we're waiting to see exactly what happened and i think richard described this very well, you just see this plane, whoever might be on board it, just dropping out of the sky. any final thoughts you have for us, ambassador mcfaul, what the american people should make of what they're watching right now? >> well, again, let's confirm, we all want to wait to see confirmation that prigozhin was on the plane and not the other one. lots of speculation on russian telegram channels now that he may have fooled everybody, and remember all the wigs and everything he has done in the past. number one, let's wait for confirmation. number two, it shows that putin will take revenge and will go after his alleged traitors forever. and he's done that in the past, several of your guests have said. he will continue to do this, and this is a shot across the bough to anybody thinking about leading a mutiny inside the armed forces. third, this to me demonstrates that there's not unity in the russian armed forces that there's not a will to fight. putin is using coercion to keep people on the battlefield. he is killing his own soldiers to keep fighting this war. that is not a sign that everybody is rallying behind this war. that is a sign that there may be deeper disarray among those, especially among the soldiers. i'm not talking about general garasamof, he's hated mr. prigozhin for a long time. that's clear. i'm wondering if you're a russian soldier sitting in ukraine right now, and just months ago you were fighting with these wagner guys in the trenches, how does this make you feel now? that's what i want to know. i want to know what those soldiers are thinking, not what their commanders are thinking. i'm guessing they're not enthusiastic about this action today. >> general, we only have a minute left, but if there is no will to fight, if they're losing the will to fight, what does that mean for the war? >> well, i'm one of the two generals. >> sorry, general mccaffrey. >> i think that ambassador mcfaul is exactly on topic. there is no will to fight generally speaking for this war. that includes elite units. there was massive flight of 300,000 or more russian military aged males to get out of the country. the current mobilization rumors that they're about to spring on more young men, young men up through the age of 50 has unsettled most of the population, so the russian military is in a very tenuous position, but they are under strict discipline. they can be shot for disobeying orders. they are on the defensive and they're doing pretty well right now to back the ukrainian counter offensive up. >> i want to thank our extraordinary panel for joining us with this breaking news. and our coverage will continue after the break with "katy tur reports." . s. - you like that bone? 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