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 a
I just think there is so much uncertainty as to what happened today. what was in that deal? and what things look like going forward. that s so interesting. general twitty, a military expert positive to me just what julie is explaining. he s on the battlefield leading his men. he saw, he saw them stacked the bodies. he saw the horrors of the incompetence of the way the war has been conducted by vladimir putin, and his military officials. does the west, does ukraine and nato make a different calculation about the ability of russia to combat ukraine s latest counter offensive? it hasn t gone well at any point. but how much weaker is the russian military without the wagner group? while they are weaker, and
to putin, really. now maybe standing up and showing that he s a player. it remains to be seen. one thing our friend tweeted was that there was a possibility that the internet would be shut down tonight for several hours in moscow. she made the point that this is the closest that the war has come to russians living in moscow. and that while putin has maintained a pretty high level of support in the country, the war, by and large, is going to wage far away in ukraine. but now here it is, literally on his doorstep. what do you hear about folks watching that part of the putin puzzle? absolutely. that is something they would be watching very closely. we don t know yet how this is going to affect the war. zelenskyy has acknowledged that the war is not going the counteroffensive is not going as well as they wanted. he says it s been very tough. the russian defenses are deep, three layers deep in some
They have an advantage of the ukrainians right now. but not a significant advantage where the ukrainians could not overtake them, and win this fight. but it s going to take a long hard fight before they re able to do that. julia, someone positive that putin looks strong by going on tv and accusing someone who looks like he s at a central casting of treason. but others have said that, you know, more to your point, to be humiliated publicly, and internationally, is the stuff of his worst nightmares. what is your analysis on that debate? absolutely. i think it s the latter. he has been terrifying the west with his threats about russian military might. russian nuclear might. about his total control of the country. he has convinced pretty much everybody in the west about how much he has consolidated power. not just in the last ten years, but especially in the last year and a half since the war began.
Vehemently refutes. he was doing some reporting on the wagner group. what would move putin to do a deal, given prigozhin amnesty after this international humiliation of vladimir putin today? well, i think it s a sign of weakness, really nicolle. on the one hand, if prigozhin really was making a move for power in moscow, he may need to see if he could ve peeled off some of the other russian command structure. some other russian units or regional figures. that didn t really happen. we saw circling of the wagons, and some of russia s political leadership around putin. but at the same time, you also saw that russia, that is over, stretched this has its metal or couldn t really stop prigozhin from taking over the city of rostov, which is the main logistics hub for the war in ukraine. and potentially threatening moscow. so both of these guys were dealing with out the hand that they wanted. so for putin to climb down, and grant prigozhin amnesty, and