uncontested dictator in his country. i want to go back to cnn s senior international correspondent matthew chance in moscow. because, matthew, it stood out to me that vladimir putin was trying to take credit, as the person who avoided blood being shed on the streets of russia. yeah. i mean, look, his authority has been has been hugely undermined by his whole episode. and of course, the kremlin are painfully aware of that, they would have watched the scenes in rostov-on-don in the south of russia with crowds cheering yevgeny prigozhin. that would have sent chills through the kremlin. that s not what they want to see on the streets of their own city. so in an attempt to sort of regain credibility putin in this very short speech gave some time to making it clear that it was him that gave the order to make sure there was no further bloodshed. and so, you know, he knows that
president alexander lukashenko who emerged as a very unlike lid me intermediary inside of belarus. it s a message that s rambling at times, self-justifying, talks certainly about the popular support that wagner got from its route from rostov-on-don up towards the capital and reminds russians again and again that wagner s main point was to criticize the russia top brass of the war. while we re certainly seeing yevgeny prigozhin on the back foot, desperate that vladimir putin thinks he never wanted to be a threat. that be it as it was, did he lose the nerve along the way or something we don t know yet. we re also still hearing this echoing criticism from prigozhin how badly the war is being prosecuted by russia.
quite frankly seemed to be cheering the wagner mercenaries and what they did. we don t know how they were met up the road towards moscow. but this is certainly not necessarily events over the weekend that found people coming out on the streets to purposely oppose them. quite the opposite in some of the scenes we saw in rostov. it s short, it shows he s backing control again, certainly. it does not mention yevgeny prigozhin by name again. almost like he s a nonperson now in putin s russia and that may exactly be what occurs. apart from his channel on telegram that he ceases to have a role in the russian relief but the impacts what he did over the weekend and how weak it made vladimir putin. you can almost see in his face, he looks gaunt, vladimir putin. he looks angry. and it s been a long time, quite frankly, for him to come forward and make a speech. and yes it was not a series of statements that it had been