agencies were able to figure out who else may have been involved and how to control prigozhin s empire, then it seems that his usefulness ran out and it was time for putin to try and reestablish himself as the undisputed boss. richard engel, thank you so much. your expertise on this is invaluable. picking up on what he said, michael allen, i m reminded that when he was in, i m going to say helsinki, he, president biden, and we just heard that brief comment from the white house, president biden said something to the effect that if he was prigozhin, he d be very careful about what he ate. do you imagine that there s any world leader that there s anyone who follows this who s surprised if indeed what happened is that prigozhin is no more? i think i m not surprised but still shocked when i actually read the news.
will trust him. he s led himself into a pariah state status both politically and economically, so there are no clear exit ramps now. this will now become the art of diplomacy, and the art of trying to give him a way out while keeping him under the pressure of the sanctions and the political isolation. that s a tough call. i m curious, to walk that line, say helsinki said today we want finland in nato and the helsinki government said we re applying formally. i had admiral stavridis on saying if they applied on today, they should approve it by friday. how fast do you think the process would work with finland? and, two, how walking that line of would putin view that as escalatory by the west even if we re doing it in response to a nation in distress?