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
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
listen, it s another reminder that you have multiple factions in russia with their own armies in effect. wagner is not the only running militia there. gazprom has its own militia. one of the most notable comments from prigozhin, dmitri, was not just his direct challenge to putin s power, but he blew up putin s justification for war in ukraine. he said what they ve been saying isn t twrue. this isn t a battle to denazify ukraine. how much has that damaged public support or just the justification for the war from putin s perspective? i m not sure it matters that much because for the past nine months, prigozhin has been the guy fighting this war. he s been calling for more aggressive actions. he said this is now an existential war for russia. he think this was a part of his plan to try to undermine defense minister shoigu by saying they
those allegations. of course that leaves him, in terms of public perception in russia, i think potentially very weakened, jim. sam kiley, we know you re going to keep trying to answer these questions. joining us now major general james spider marks. good to have you on, sir. thank you, jim. it was over quickly, but during that short time period, he was able prigozhin to take rostov-on-don, which is the key center for logistics, command and control to the war in ukraine, and travel all the way up to here, close to moscow. how does he do that, and what does that mean not just putin s control over the country but the russian military s control over the country? they barely seemed to challenge him. also bear in mind wagner had a very strong footprint in here and elsewhere in the region obviously. the borders right here, they were able to come across. the wagner group had free movement in and out from russia into ukraine. they used this area,
in danger of losing his president anytime soon. but what he is in danger of is losing relevancy. the reality is everyone right now in russia, all the elites, whether you re a governor somewhere, whether you re in the security forces, whether you re a general, you re looking at prigozhin challenging putin and, so far at least, getting away with it. you should be asking yourself the question, what can i get away with to enrich myself, to gain myself more power? do i really need to ask the kremlin for permission anytime i try to do something? so you may have a def lusion into chaos here over time in russia. well, in the midst of this, putin accused him of treason, the highest crime, called these terrorist acts and then a deal was struck. and now all is forgiven. we ll see going forward. but that s quite a shift in the span of just a number of hours. you had will hurd running for the gop nomination say that the biden administration missed an opportunity here to act in some way, not e