Well, the nicolle, i think the fact that the national security adviser did cancel that trip to copenhagen yesterday, we are trying to drill down on exactly what time that decision was made. it would suggest that, again, maybe perhaps earlier on in the day, before this became a little bit more public, was there a sense of that. and was that why jake sullivan decided not to go to denmark to participate in those talks? that was an open question. i think this is something that the white house is, of course, been watching very closely for some time in this broader sense. of knowing that things can turn on a dime, in an incredibly volatile scenario like the one we are seeing. so while not specifically, necessarily, pointing to the possibility of this for weeks and months now, they ve been talking to some of the disagreements. of course, certainly the atrocities by the wagner group s. specifically. i think this is a president who always, in every meeting, with every world leader, no matter wh
It s close to the russian ukrainian border, rather. worryingly, for vladimir putin, those same russian media reports are also showing crowds of civilians cheering on those wagner mercenaries. so, the big question hanging over all of this, assuming that this deal has been made, is it possible, given the bridges that have been burned, the red lines that have been crossed, is it possible for these wagner mercenaries to return to the field, here in ukraine, and continue the fight alongside the russian military. remember, nicole, but a reporting was on tv this morning, saying that prigozhin had stabbed the army in the back. stop the russian people in the back. and russians who have crossed putin in much smaller ways than seizing a city and marching on moscow have not lived to tell the tale. we will see if this deal holds. if there is really any way back for the wagner mercenary group and for its leader. nicole? rough, but you have any
And the way that putin has run his regime for a long time, he does have these competing corrupt fiefdoms incredibly corrupt good deal of money on the side. he s church and roll on kadyrov. is also played a role in the fight in ukraine, he s dependent on these, people also at odds with each, other nickel. this is not a unified command structure. and that is been boiling underneath the service in unexplored interview. so good to putin s next prestige actually running the unified command over the last 44 hours and it s also the potential loss of wagner and his most potent fighting forces on the front lines. that does not bode well with particular time when ukraine is back on the offense. , i believe the wall street journal has indicated that some of its journalists who have been charged and detained on espionage charges in russia, some of the state department
As we look ahead to the next couple of weeks, this nato summit that is expected to take place in lithuania, that the president will attend, was already extremely interesting and relevant. now, even more so, of course, with all of this going on, nicole? ben rhodes, viewers of our networks are so well stated all these issues, i ll admit, i made some calls to understand how central the wagner group and paid mercenaries have been to vladimir putin s war effort in ukraine. the answer was universally sizable. they were in the league in bakhmut. some theory among military experts that some of what precocious was a tipping point may have been the brutality that he saw the troops endure there, the way disorders and others were treated. my question for you, ben rhodes, can putin prevail in ukraine without the wagner group another mercenaries? well, they weren t prevailing even with the wagner group. if they lose a bunch of that
Quite frankly the wagner group is better than any of the russian soldiers that we ve seen to date. so putting them in a fight against bakhmut helped out russia significantly. russian forces alone, you look at kyiv, you look at kyrsten, you look in the south, there, kharkiv in the east. failure across the board for russian troops. so the success goes to the wagner group. without putting them in the fight, they will be significantly reduced. but what i will tell you, is that if you look at the way the russians are currently laid out in the south right now. across 600 miles in the south in a defense where they ve been, in many cases, 14 years in the nest. and across the rest of the front, they ve been there for over a year. so there are significant duggan.