City of rostov-on-don. russia s military headquarters, in its war against ukraine. it appeared that wagner forces were set to wage an armed rebellion against the kremlin. citing the deaths of thousands of its fighters in ukraine under what they call, quote, false pretenses. it s a move putin described as treason. the promise to crush what he called the armed mutiny. this is important to note, the wagner group has been critical in russia s ability to wage war in ukraine. they have backed up russia s defense ministry. the white house has been monitoring all of the events in russia all day long. president joe biden and vice president kamala harris have been continually briefed by the national security team. president biden speaking earlier today by phone with the leaders of france, germany and the uk. before nato leaders all reiterating their support for ukraine, according to the white house. let me bring into our coverage our team of reporters, experts and analysts here to discuss all of
Hi there, everyone. i m nicole wallace, thanks for being here with us. we ve got a lot of places you get your news today, we re glad you re joining us. four pm in the east, it s 11 pm in moscow. we re following breaking news this hour, with the latest on the revolt unfolding in russia. and we see news is confirming, yevgeny prigozhin is the head of the wagner group, which is a private mercenary army in russia, that s done a lot of the fighting in the war in ukraine. he has called for his moscow bound convoy to stand down for now. that s only after advancing to within 120 miles of the city of moscow. in the biggest threat to russian president vladimir putin s grip on power that we ve ever seen. prigozhin sent a voice note, signaling that the forces would stand down, saying the group understands, quote, the responsibility for spilling russian blood on one of the sides. we are turning back our convoys, and going back to field camps, according to the plan. this comes just hours after the w
Victory through all the resources they need. i guess we don t have a war with this high degree of instability in the system. i think those are the things that first come to mind. colonel vindman, how credible is the kremlin s statement issued through russian state media, that amnesty would be offered to prigozhin? and that his troops who didn t take up arms would be folded into the russian military? eight hours ago he called them, describe it as treason. that seems highly unrealistic. we are not clearly seeing everything that is happening behind the curtain. i think prigozhin likely, you know, demanded he had a critical position of strength. he demanded that shoigu and gerasimov, be removed and replaced with competent generals. he likely demanded the freedom of operation for the wagner forces, and suffered in a part of the ministry of defense.
Shrug you, or chief of the general staff that part of the deal and get removed. the next thing would be starting to do some deeper defending, this is what the national security council probably already plans for. or at least should have, in part. which, is what happens next? we have now entered a very, very delicate portion in russia s scaling war in ukraine. it s going to be increasingly erratic and potentially there will be a lot more infections in fighting. it wasn t just prigozhin wagner troops. there seem to be some, at least tentative, ten u.s. support from other elements within the security establishment. those are going to have to be rooted out. we are in a very, very delicate, scary time. at the same time, ukrainians are likely seizing the opportunity, and likely making significant gains. this is an opportunity to help wind down this war relatively quickly. fully enable ukraine to have a
Military defense forces. of shoigu and gerasimov. that s why they re being very careful. and not saying anything, even on the background. usually we don t see the military officials say, because they really don t know. they don t want to be seen as weighing in. a couple of things are very clear. wall street journalist first reported, i think this is true, they are not going to do anything to upset the balance, or the imbalance right now. so they were planning separate sanctions against the wagner group, this could ve come as early as next week. that s probably on hold right now. they don t want to see to be seen putting their thumb on the scale in any way. they re not surprised that erdogan, turkey called in to mediate earlier, because he s already traveling the west and russia. working both sides, not joining in the nato sanctions against russia. it s not clear that he had any more effect. lukashenko might be the real winner here, he s always been a