that does it for me this hour. i m alicia menendez, i will hang things over to him and more hitting. i will see you back here ten pm for continuing coverage for what s going on in russia. it s a very busy day. i will see you in a few hours, alicia. good evening, and welcome to a special edition of ayman tonight. everything you need to know about the evolving situation on the ground in russia over the next two hours, we re gonna break down the big complex security issues. we re gonna explain how all of these developments with the backing of group affect the war in ukraine. the nato alliance, with us right here at home. i will be speaking with ro khanna, a member of the house services committee about how the biden administration should react. i m ayman mohyeldin, let s get started.
Directly ascribed to them. so i doubt that they were mercenary group like them is going to go away completely. my guess is that they will try to preserve something. of. it but there are certainly going to be concerned about a group that isn t pulled into the putin s power structure. and that s what s happened here. prigozhin has essentially making money in africa. he had its own military. so it continues to grow and as we found out about a month ago, it s turned out he was potentially selling russian positions in ukraine. or trying to sell them to the ukrainians. so he was operating very independently. so i that i think is one of the reasons why they tried to bring them under the hold of the mlb. but long term, these types of proxy groups and loosely allied government groups give russia a lot of different tactical weapons that they can use throughout the war in this gray zone activity. there are not going away. rex, let me ask you about
Tonight, we begin with breaking news out of russia. a major twist in that country s war against ukraine. vladimir putin forced to confront a rebellion within his own borders. just hours ago, we learned that if guinea prigozhin, the owner and the head of the wagner group and mercenary force that has been fighting alongside the russian military and ukraine, halted his advance on to the country s capital. that announcement came shortly after prigozhin claimed he and his fighters had captured the city of rostov-on-don home to the russian military headquarters for its war in ukraine. since their invasion last year, moscow has become dependent on the back in a group to support the war efforts as they re dwindling russian forces struggle to make significant gains inside ukrainian territory. in december, the u.s. said it believed the group had an estimated 50,000 personnel
And according to what the russians are saying, a deal was brokered and under this deal, wagner is more or less dispend did, this private mercenary army of mainly convicts, at least disbanded as a fighting force in ukraine. because buckner is much more than a group that just fights in ukraine. it also has operatives all around the world. and actually, it makes most of its money in africa where it has a service where it provides security services to african dictators, particularly in central africa, especially the central african republic. and in exchange for propping up weak governments that are facing rebellions or facing insurrections or famines, other problems of instability, the wagner group helps itself to the country s minerals. gold, diamonds, uranium, timber, whatever the countries happen
To be. we recently focused on the central african republic where the buckner group is more or less in charge. they control the government, they provide the body guarding services for the president himself. i interviewed the president, you have to go through wagner in order to get to him. wagner patrol the streets. so he has something like a pirate empire around the world. but it was his operations in ukraine, fighting this war alongside the russian military that caused so much controversy. his operations overseas, these moneymaking operations, it s unclear if he s going to be able to continue to carry them out. no mention of them so far. so the assumption is, as long as he leaves the battlefield, as long as he stops having an open fight with members of the russian military establishment, he will be allowed to live for