Report is saying that there will be an amnesty for the wagner mercenaries who took part in this rebellion. and that those wagner fighters who refused to take part will be merged into russia s defense ministry. no, nicolle, this would make sense. the president of belarus, lukashenko, a close ally of vladimir putin, said earlier tonight, he was the mediator between the kremlin in the wagner mercenary group. he s the one who brokered the deal. that led to wagner calling off its advance on moscow. so, it would seem to make sense that belarus could be the place where prigozhin might agree to go into exile. we do not have any confirmation from prigozhin that he has agreed to this deal. nicole, we are also seeing on russian state media, reports that wagner mercenaries are now leaving the southern city of rostov, which they seized overnight. this is a key city, it s the city where the invasion of ukraine has been masterminded.
In general has been connecting this war. they have, probably when the tougher sector was responsible for an offensive that the russians were conducting over the course of the winter. they were the only sector that made any gains. these are hardened troops that, it s a combination of special ops ex military special operations forces. airborne forces. a whole lot of russian prisoners, that have been hardened in either years of experience in wars in the middle east and africa, or in this war in ukraine, fighting in his very, very tough sector. the rest of the picture that russia had the rest of the battlefield, the vast majority of the frontline, and didn t manage to make any gains over the course of their offensive. wagner gets a lot of credit for that. one other thing i d just like to make a point about, this is an enormously important period in this war.
Media? well, you hit the perfect word. combustible. i get back to this distrust thing. when you, in the heat of battle, you need to know that the person to your left and right, you can trust and depend on. there s no way that the russian soldier will trust anyone from the wagner group. i think it will be the same going the other way with the wagner group not trusting the russians. i think there s been too much rhetoric, and too much infighting within both of these organizations, to bring them together at this point. so this idea of holding it the wagner group into the army, i think it is a combustible ingredient. s a julia, what are your warg indicators? what are you watching to see tomorrow morning rush a time? who are you looking to sort of speak out, and what would be a
Sign of putin s continued weakness there? it s interesting that so many people, so many members of the security council, so many permanent members of the russian state propaganda apparatus kept their piece today. didn t say anything. what i m going to be looking for is to see how the russian military continues to perform without wagner. i think what s interesting is that this all began because prigozhin was saying that the military, the russian defense ministry, wanted to drive and fold them into the defense ministry. he marches on moscow, seemingly chokes at the last minute, and now parts of wagner are going to be folded into the defense ministry. something is not adding up here. i can t see how this quite holds. one of the regions prigozhin was able to hold on as long as
Correspondent, raf sanchez. from washington d.c., nbc news white house correspondent, monica alba, former deputy national security adviser, ben rhodes. raf, we understand your some breaking news coming in just the last few minutes? nicole, in just the last few minutes, russian state media is quoting vladimir putin s spokesman, dimitri peskov, who is saying that the criminal case against yevgeny prigozhin, the leader of the wagner mercenary group, for armed rebellion, is going to be dropped. in exchange, prigozhin is going to agree to go into some kind of exile in belarus. this is coming from russian state media. that has not been independently confirmed by nbc news. this appears to be our first glimpse at the possible terms of the deal that resulted in prigozhin halting his advance on moscow, turning his mercenaries around. this same russian state media