Putin speaks to his nation after Russian revolt | ABCNL

and we have breaking news right now that we want to turn to Russian president who Vladimir Putin has just spoken for the first time after that Revolt from Wagner ABC News Chief foreign correspondent Ian panel joins me now on the phone we also have ABC's Patrick Revell in kharkiv Ukraine and ABC News contributor and National Security and defense analyst Mick mulroy and I want to start with you what did Putin say and what's the significance of it yeah um Stephanie this is the first time that Putin has spoken out uh apart from his address to the nation which was in the midst of the crisis um he seems to be trying to put a cap on the crisis I think one of the key takeaways are ways from this despite the fact that we're all reporting and apparently was announced that everyone will be given an amnesty he said that the organizers of the Rebellion will be brought to Justice uh criminal activity aimed at weakening the country will be dealt with and he referred to the whole episode as a colossal threat I mean he thanked the security services and others uh he accused Keith Ukraine and west of trying to undermine Russia that they wanted to see Russians firing on each other and wanted to sow chaos inside the country so I think this is Vladimir Putin trying to show that look he is in charge and that everything is okay there's nothing to see here but of course the reality is no nobody's going to forget I think one of the Striking things about it he said that all the country rallied around him around the Russian government and I don't know whether that was the case if you saw some of those astonishing scenes in rostov on Don where the locals came out to take selfies with the Wagner troops to bring them food and water they cheered and waved them goodbye like they were conquering Heroes but of course for many Russian people they've been fed uh this diet of Lies for so long to understand quite was going on the ground um I think would have been difficult In the Heat of the Moment especially as not everything was being reported but this is an important moment president lukashenko was thanked by President uh Putin for playing a role in trying to bring an end to this march on Moscow and lukashenko himself is also addressing the nation but there was certainly no backing down there were no concessions we had suspected that maybe he's going to announce that the defense minister assure you perhaps the uh the head of the Armed Forces geratimal perhaps though there would be some change of personnel which we know is something the precaution had set out to achieve so sometimes as the ball will be back in progressions court but Putin said to have essentially said uh they're trying to go after him and Ian we heard from the national security coordinator John Kirby earlier just a few moments ago actually and it was interesting because he said that it was publicly known that progression was going to take this route that he was going to move forward with this movement what does that tell you about the the system right now in Russia being that John Kirby is saying that the U.S was fully aware that this was going to happen over the weekend but they're basically staying out of it and continuing to support Ukraine but what does that tell you about what's going on in Russia well I mean a couple of things I think firstly it's astonishing the idea that the United States knew that this was about to happen and the Russian government didn't the Russian government certainly didn't look prepared in any way pagosian and his his Fighters and he said with their 25 000 of us there was nothing like that number uh marched into rostov on Don a key military hub for the Southern military command took over military headquarters of military Airfield with consumerity there was relatively little response relatively little resistance so uh it's kind of hard to imagine that Russian authorities knew this however this didn't just come out of the blue it came against a backdrop of increasingly outspoken and angry statements from progression directed against the Russian military leadership in fact even earlier on that day he basically accused the Russian military leadership of basing the war on a lie I mean he accused some of the various things that actually Vladimir Putin has been charged with um he said that their the way that they've run the war is is bad has been ineffective but it's only his fighters who have been affected on the ground and that there's some truth in that age accused him of starving Wagner troops of food of ammunition and vital kind of artillery shells and kit and so so there has been a backdrop of this increasing anger against them and then of course there was this incident if it was real or not we don't really know where he says that they were actually shelled but I think the other key thing for pregosian was that there was an active attempt to effectively try and subsume Wagner into the Russian Ministry of Defense it was in order out that basically everyone should sign on uh with the regular military and that was something that uh the pregosium was resistant to whether it was because he would financially lose out or not it's not clear but also because he wields a huge amount of power and of course at some point that's got to be a threat for someone like Putin who wants to control all the levers of power absolutely in and we also heard from progocian as well saying that he had no desire to overthrow the government that the March was meant to stop Russian forces from absorbing Wagner so what do you make of all of that of that message yes I'm I mean there was some question when this all ended you know that the Putin emerges humiliated and weakened I think that's certainly true but also many people who felt that prokosian had somehow played a great hand that that you know he's gonna get what he wants and I'm just not sure that's what we're seeing right now I mean if pagosian says that this was all about trying to protect the the Wagner Fighters and the Wagner group from being subsumed into Russian Ministry of defense well you could just throw that in the the trash can because President Putin made it clear that that those Fighters will now either have to join the regular military sign on with the ministry of defense or go home so it seems to me if I understand exactly what happened of course we're all listening through a translation we're all trying to make sense of it this that Wagner wolf pleased to exist in its current form at least on the front lines have been a suggestion from foreign minister lavrov earlier that perhaps they would only be active uh in Africa in Mali and in the Central African Republic but I don't quite see what progosian has got out of this other than demonstrating quite clearly to many people that Putin is no longer at the PowerHouse that we all thought he was and we've heard from White House officials we've heard from President Biden saying that the support for Ukraine will stay it is unwavering they've said how does this movement from over the weekend change the fight in Ukraine if at all I mean it's a great question and it's one that frankly every Ukrainian is out [Music] lines uh again you know watching Russians fight Russians uh when they've been attacked their cities have been devastated uh their children have been kidnapped their civilians have been killed by Russia then of course they thought that this this would benefit them and had it gone on longer then Putin would have faced a choice the only way to properly defend Moscow could potentially have been to withdraw some troops some of the more capable troops from Ukraine to defend Russia and to defeat Wagner no it didn't get to that stage because it was over with almost 24 hours after it started so it's not clear how much this is going to benefit I mean the ukrainians had said and we spoke to one of the advisors around president zelenski who said look yeah of course we're going to try and take advantage of this we're going to use it to try and press cancer offensive but he also said the truth is that the Russians are dug in so well in multiple lines of defense that there isn't going to be a quick surge it's not going to be what we saw last year around Harkey where they were just taking uh enormous square miles every single day no one's expecting that the head the areas heavily mined there are huge Russian defenses but having said that they do seem to have at least pressed their foots on the accelerator a little bit but yeah we are starting to see uh some more areas starting to be taken around the fringes but I think it looked like it was going to be a golden opportunity for Ukraine Discord and disarray amongst their enemies now it remains to be seen if the Russians can consolidate and dig in and everyone feels okay we've got over that crisis then then perhaps it will continue to be as difficult as it has been for the ukrainians to retake their land however it's hard to imagine that things can quite go back to as they were before and of course they're now going to be missing those key Wagner Fighters who've been so instrumental in some of the fighting in the East around donbach see how the fight changes we also understand that President Biden is set to speak with president zielinski at some point we heard that from the National Security Council coordinator John Kirby so we'll see if we can get a readout of that conversation thank you so much Ian we want to turn down to Patrick Revell in kharkiv Patrick you've learned that the Belarusian president has canceled a planned address what more can you tell us yes definitely that's right um the Belarusian president Alexander lukashenko was supposed to give a simultaneous speech at the same time as Vladimir Putin though both announced only about an hour ago and we've just learned that that speech has now been canceled he is supposed to take questions tomorrow apparently I mean Alexander kashenko was a wild card in this crisis he played suddenly a seemingly pretty crucial role in negotiating an end to the crisis he was the one who called yogini pagosian and seemingly was able to convey this deal from the Kremlin um that convinced him to turn back and to stop his Mutiny we know now supposedly that evgenie progression has been invited to go to Belarus along with any Wagner fighters who don't wish to either join the Russian Ministry of defense or to go back to their families as Putin said I think you know listening to Putin when we heard of you know about about even half an hour ago that he was going to give this address to the nation his spokesman said that this speech would um without any exaggeration deter term in the fate of Russia which are pretty big words and they said that he would make major statements important statements I think when we actually listened to it there was a lot of anger in what Putin said there was quite a performance but actually there was very very little Concrete in what he said he said that Wagner Fighters now can either join the ministry of defense or they can go to Belarus and he implied that he wouldn't he did say that Justice would come for those who organized the kubi he didn't say how and certainly he said that he said that they could leave because that was his word and I think what really what we were seeing here was an attempt just to spin this crisis this was Vladimir Putin attempting to try and control the narrative and say the Russians look I managed to stop the crisis without any Bloodshed I look how magnanimous I am and ultimately didn't we all do this together but obviously anyone watching it yesterday knows that very much wasn't actually the case no one really understood what was going on for much of the day and obviously it ended with evgeny pregosian um leaving and ultimately without a question this did extremely chaotic and extremely weak and to people around the world but obviously this is Putin trying to control the narrative around this crisis and Patrick as you just said that Putin said organizers of the Rebellion will be brought to Justice now of the Wagner Chief does go to Belarus What would life be like for him there could he be safe there I mean so Belarus is very much a vassal state of Russia particularly since the revolution that broke out there the mass protests that broke out there in 2020 and which were put down with Russian help um Alexander lukashenko basically is a client of Vladimir Putin but he does have this very complicated relationship where he's able to kind of balance it and again here he's sort of acting as though he has this distance he's somehow it's okay for you of getting progression to be in Belarus but not in Russia and we've heard rumors from Wagner Fighters that they are going to go some of them are going to go to Belarus and there will be camps so there are camps even right now being built for them to go and live there I mean I think there's also this idea that perhaps in the long run your guinea pig ocean can go back to his interests in Africa um and perhaps that will happen but we simply don't know right now it's also possible that Vladimir Putin for all of his stern was now ultimately won't be able to touch any pregosian he certainly so far hasn't been able to we heard you have any progression give this audio message earlier um where he sounded in good spirits and again claims that he hadn't intended to overthrow the government but I mean really obviously an extraordinary absolutely extraordinary crisis that we've seen in Russia where we've seen someone like progosian challenge the state and what the one thing that Vladimir Putin did make very clear here was that this was a real attempt to challenge the state this was a real armed rebellion and that they had to put down and put the very um the very nature of the Russian State at risk and that's an extraordinary thing to have happened it certainly is a very messy and dynamic situation there in Russia thank you Patrick Mick what's your take on Putin's remarks the first time we've really heard from him since the end of this Mutiny what'd you think so Stephanie two things really stood out one that he acknowledged that this was a quote colossal threat that's not something totalitarian leaders usually like to acknowledge it shows that he had a serious concern about his own ability to stay in power the second uh which Patrick alluded to Andy Ended as well is that he didn't he didn't concede to anything that we think fragosian would have asked for such as removing the ministry of defense shoigu or the chief of the uh Chief of Staff uh garasimov those are two individuals that pagosian had serious problems with and quite frankly have failed at almost every level when it comes to the war in Ukraine I think that really does show that and the fact that he's going to force Wagner Fighters into the mod shows that provosian uh did not get what he think he requested perhaps it was only um a payoff that got him to go to Belarus and and stop his Advance toward Moscow out and Ian I I want to bring you back into the conversation earlier we we heard from uh National Security Council coordinator John Kirby who said that the there's still a largely capable militia in Ukraine that the Fight Continues it does not change that you've spent a lot of time with Ukrainian troops how do you think this Revolt from over the weekend will impact their morale I mean that morale is astonishingly High given that the casualty rate is also astonishingly high and we've witnessed that themselves but for them this is an existence existential struggle and that doesn't really change I think if anything perhaps it shows the fallibility of Russian forces although I think that's been demonstrated quite clearly on the battlefield in multiple locations um on a practical level unless you know the chaos that we saw seeps into the defense is on the ground and there's no evidence yet of that I don't think it really changes the calculations there's still a long hard bloody violent slog ahead of them to try and retake their territory uh but yet of course they're energized and you know certainly talking to senior Ukrainian officials and zelenski's made this point that that Putin is not the strong man that many people thought and I think that has to have an impact psychologically to know that actually you're you're enemy militarily isn't as strong or to be feared as you thought but also that the leadership in Moscow are kind of looked fallible as well I mean ukrainians have been saying for some time that they predicted that the war in Ukraine would spill across into Russia and we we have to see whether Putin can consolidate I think Steve can you have put this perfectly well earlier in the day there are now cracks in the building and and cracks can lead to Total dissolution and with you know chaos and we'll have to went and see if that's the case but also structures can continue for some time I think a lot depends really on how things go here on the battlefield as to how it's going to affect Putin's future and the future of Russia and you yourself uh said that you spoke with a with an a to zelenski uh telling you that he believes the current chaos will further hinder Russia's war effort in Ukraine hopefully him saying that hopefully it's the beginning of the end of course we will we will watch it from here Mick I want to ask you the same question how how do you think this changes uh morale for for the forces there in Ukraine if at all so Stephanie I would have said that I I couldn't see how the morale of the Russian shoulder could sink any deeper in Ukraine but I think this actually would do it uh Wagner is a group of central war criminals essentially war criminals but they are uh fighting or they were fighting in Ukraine and they were one of the few forces that would really truly go on the offensive they're no longer there and now the Russian soldiers that are could see that their very government that set them there is under threat from that group in their own country so the the destabilization of their country that knowing that very few people have confidence in their leadership whether it's grassimoff or shoigu all the way up to President Putin I think that only serves to make their morale worse and of course that is an advantage to the Ukrainian forces at the incrementally uh go through this counter-offensive all right thank you very much make uh Patrick I also want to get to the latest on the fighting Ukraine has landed troops on the russian-held Eastern Bank of the river in croissant what's the latest on the ground yeah Stephanie I mean as we've been talking about the Ukrainian counter-offensive there was a notable development in the South across from the liberated city of Hassan on the Eastern side of the river there we know mainly from Russian sources that there has been a landing by a small number of Ukrainian troops but they have supposedly been there now for about three days and have managed to dig in the Russians are really struggling to dislodge them the Russians supposedly have been striking them with Aviation and with artillery I mean the numbers we're talking about the Russians are saying only around 50 Men We simply don't know what we're seeing is these very small boats bringing people over but I think mainly one of the significant things that it does show and from the videos that the Russians themselves are releasing is how few positions the Russians seem to have on that bank right up against right up against the river and they say that's because of the flooding that was caused by the explosion of the dam earlier this month which caused that devastating flooding but also did Flood out many of the um Russian positions on that area and so we one of the main reasons this man matters is simply because there is as we've been seeing quite a lot of pressure on the Russians on the zapparesia front line to the east that's where they've managed to make the ukrainians have managed to make at least some small dents in the Russian line and right now we're trying to wear them down and by doing this this simply again starts to stretch the Russians and start to make some concern what is going to happen I mean there is a theory that even the reason why this dam was blown up was perhaps because Russia was trying to block any kind of Ukrainian attack from the Hearthstone Direction and so to see that they have again the ukrainians are again pushing here on that and making these very bold very audacious Landings I think shows that we are very much still not yet into the main phase even at the counter-offensive all right Patrick thank you so much I know it's late there in Ukraine our thanks to Patrick Ian and Mick really appreciate your time hi everyone George Stephanopoulos here thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel if you'd like to get more videos show highlights and watch live event coverage click on the right 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Channel: ABC News

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Keywords: Putin, Russia, Vladimir, abc, abcnl, mercenaries, news, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-100388284

Id: 0z-hpXQKteA

Length: 20min 28sec (1228 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 26 2023