a good sunday evening to you. i m jim sciutto, and this is cnn s special live coverage of the extraordinary events this weekend out of russia. moscow s red square blocked off again today after the brief but stunning insurrection that s gripped the world, could perhaps weaken vladimir putin s grip on his country. we should note it s far too soon to know. so much we don t know about what led wagner mercenary group leader yevgeny prigozhin to launch a march on moscow and what convinced him to abruptly call it off. and then, it s said, go into exile. u.s. secretary of state tony blinken today called the whole series of events extraordinary, believes it indicates that cracks are emerging in putin s rule. the very latest now from cnn s sam kiley live from london. sam, we re watching russia closely, ukraine, also events in belarus. any developments to indicate to us what s actually happening right now? reporter: well, jim, i think the most stunning development so far is an absence
earning the nickname putin s chef for his close work with the russian president, which went far beyond food, we should note. but this weekend he became the leader of an open insurrection. who is the head of the wagner mercenary group exactly? cnn s brian todd takes a look. reporter: the man recently videotaped screaming at vladimir putin s top military officials for betraying his mercenaries on the battlefield is someone used to the tactic of strong arming, threatening, ruthlessly taking what he wants. wagner group leader yevgeny prigozhin may have won over vladimir putin for displaying those traits rather than the fact that they both hail from the same hometown, st. petersburg. i think that prigozhin does have some personality traits that putin not only likes but also, i think, sees in himself. reporter: prigozhin s rise is a classic russian tale of brute force ambition. he served time in prison in the final stages of the soviet union for petty crimes.
fears and in some cases respects. reporter: one analyst says no matter how this high-stakes drama turns out in the end, that at the very least, yevgeny prigozhin has damaged vladimir putin by openly telling the russian people that the ukraine war was started under fraudulent circumstances. brian todd, cnn, washington. big question is, what exactly was prigozhin s goal here? was he aiming to topple putin himself, or did he have lower targets in mind? i actually don t believe that this was an attempt to take over power from putin. i think that this goes back to june 10th when shoigu issued this order to dismantle all private military companies in russia, including most promp continently wagner, and to make everyone sign contracts, subsuming them on july 1st. prigozhin said he wasn t going to follow through with this, and he expected putin to take his
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is that a safe haven? belarus is basically it s a vassal state. well, it s a vassal state of russia. it s at least a temporary way station, right? he could leave. prigozhin could depart and rejoin his wagner forces elsewhere. they re in yemen. they re in syria. they re in africa. they re in ukraine. they are in ukraine. i don t know how that s going to work when you ve got the military force, which is the russian military force, which has clearly demonstrated its incompetence. how will wagner force integrate itself into the russian force? i find that a very, very difficult task. with a question about who s actually running things. major general spider marx, thanks so much as always. president biden is back at the white house after spending a working weekend at camp david. he remained largely silent publicly on the rebellion in russia, but the white house says he spoke with ukraine s president zelenskyy privately earlier as well as canada s