when they put me in prison, i heard they were recruiting. serve six months and they pardon you, he tells me. so he signed up with storm z, a unit made up of convicts attached to the russian defense ministry. after only two weeks of basic training, he was shipped off to the frontlines near bakhmut. [ gunfire ] after days of intense shelling, with only rainwater and no food, he heard ukrainian troops outside his foxhole. he assumed they would execute him. i thought that was the end, he recalls. i switched my rifle to single shot mode and thought, i ll shoot myself, but i couldn t. this video, shot by soldiers of ukraine s assault brigade, shows the intense moments when he and his comrade surrendered. the ukrainian troops told them, unlike russians, we don t kill prisoners. we spoke to him and another soldier in a jail in eastern grain, concealing their faces and not using their real names. the third assault brigade granted us access to the p.o.w.s, and two of their soldie
Five days after the plane carrying wagner s warlord yevgeny prigozhin fell from the sky. cnn visited the site. cnn s matthew chance is inside russia for us as officials there deny any involvement in the deadly crash and russians remember yevgeny prigozhin s legacy. reporter: don t expect to see these scenes on russian state television. when it comes toll the wagner leader who challenged the kremlin, then died in a plane crash, there s a virtual media blackout. wagner supporters like dmitry in moscow are simply not being heard. reporter: yevgeny prigozhin s death, he says, confirms there are fewer and fewer of us who really think about our country, our history and our goals.
Special military operation, the war this ukraine, was equally important. you know, it all sort of kind of points to this idea that vladimir putin is off celebrating loyalty. meanwhile, the man who led the coup or the attempted coup against vladimir putin s kremlin two months to the day before this crash seems to have been on board and to have met his end. yeah. two interesting anniversaries on that same day. as we know, putin does enjoy a chance to mark an anniversary. matthew, appreciate it. stay with us. i want to bring in chief international correspondent clarissa ward. you have covered for years the notorious wagner group. you uncovered a wagner training ground in the central african republic. give us a sense of what this would mean to these vast operations of wagner across the world if in fact yevgeny prigozhin is dead. reporter: well, this is a
Been identified positively as yevgeny prigozhin. so that s one of the reasons why we re still holding back from saying definitely certainly that prigozhin was killed in this crash. there s one other reason, as well. we don t ever really know exactly where prigozhin is. he popped up on what was meant to be a video from somewhere in africa a couple of days ago. and so would have had to have gott back to moscow to take this route en route to st. petersburg which is possible. also there was a situation i remember a couple of years ago, i think it was in 2019, when there was another plane crash in an african country i think the democratic republic of congo, in which yevgeny prigozhin was meant to be on board, as well, and meant to have died. it turned out that he hadn t. so you know, obviously we re exercising some caution when it comes to saying categorically that prigozhin died in this crash. but all the pointers, i have to say, at the moment are that he was on the passenger list, he
Wr just ahead, the plane crash in russia. the russian authorities saying that yevgeny prigozhin has in fact been killed. that is coming from russian authorities. now the question is how? who may have been behind it? what will the investigation look like with russia leading it? intg ? .a clown! sorry, what app was it again? nono, no. just give me a second. amateurs. ohohhh! sorry everybody. directv sports central gives you access to every game. .so you never have to compromise on gameday. .was that necessary? i was just illustrating a point. oh. get in the redzone with sports pack. call 1-800-directv i m patriotic kenny. and, hi, i m amanda on tiktok.