whole world on a nerve s edge? yevgeny prigozhin out of sight. this is the last-known image of the wagner leader fleeing, striking a deal to go to belarus after leading an armed rebellion over the weekend. but is there a deal really? what does it say about his motive in that new audio recording? plus, the kremlin scrambling pro project control, releasing new video of vladimir putin today. we hadn t seen him in more than 48 hours since releasing a short statement during the most dramatic challenge to his power in decades. his whereabouts officially are still unknown since we don t know exactly when or where the video was recorded. president biden, though, making it clear in the last hour putin can t point fingers at his enemies. he gave no excuse to blame this on the west or blame this on nato. we made clear that we were not involved, we had nothing to do with it. this is part of a struggle within russia s system. in about 15 minutes we ll hear from the u.s. state departme
capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles. ryan, also with us, frank figliuzzi, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi. he is also an msnbc national security analyst. ryan, what do we know and not know about the attack at this hour? reporter: well, the biggest open question right now, jose, is motive. there doesn t appear to be a lot of clear answers right now as to why paul pelosi was targeted inside his san francisco home early this morning. we do know that the attack was violent, and it was enough for him to be rushed to the hospital. he is in the hospital now and the spokesperson for pelosi s office says that he is receiving excellent care and is expected to make a full recovery. the speaker herself, though, was not in san francisco at the time. and of course, jose, this comes against the backdrop of an increasing number of threats directed at members of congress and their families. capitol police put out a report over the summer that said there s bee
not in ukraine. one of the things, evelyn, that prigozhin said in his statement is that he asked his troops, do you want to integrate into the russian soldier. he said only 1% to 2% said they would want to do that. he is a master of disinformation. but given what you ve just heard from the general and what you know about the situation on the ground, could that ring true to you, or at least something like it? it rings true to me, chris, because the one thing that distinguished prigozhin, aside from his real bloodthirstiness and brutality, although we did see that in other elements of the russian military, but the one thing that distinguished him is how outspoken he was on behalf of his troops in the field, right? no other russian commander was publicly advocating like that. and probably privately, also, not advocating for the regular conscripts because it s not part of the russian military culture to care about the conscripts.
take out putin with violence. we would ill-advised to see that as some kind of a success story. by the way, putin is being pushed on his right by hard-liners on the war who want to see we watch on state television, russian state television is atrocious, on burning ukrainian children alive and firing nuclear weapons at the uk, paris, berlin. we have no guarantee that a successor of putin would be any better. this russian military culture and indeed the russian political system has melted down. hundreds of thousands of russian men have fled to escape his own conscription service. he s in trouble. no one can see the way out for him or ukraine, for that matter. general, it s always a pleasure to see you. i thank you very much for being with us as always. good to be with you.
former adviser in the last hour. mariupol, extreme courage is on full display as ukrainians rejected an ultimatum posed by the russians to stop fighting. a spokesman for ukraine said troops were able to hold on in areas where russian forces are actively trying to advance. we re unable to get a full picture of the horrors in mariupol. new drone footage shows civilians digging mass graves in irpin. reporting in the new york times shows the atrocities peopling committed are deeply rooted in russian military culture. civilia deaths and war crimes committed by solders figure into every war. in russia such acts are rarely investigated or acknowledged or