News. Russian authorities are telling vulgar fighters not to follow their leader, Evgeny Prigozhin, and also to take measures to detain him. That coming as the infamous head of the private Wagner Russian mercenary army is making a stunning claim tonight, accusing Russia's military leadership of killing a, quote, huge amount of his Wagner forces in a strike. That is a claim that Russia denies. We have CNN's Ben Wedeman on the ground in Ukraine and our Oren Liebermann monitoring at the Pentagon Ben, I want to go to you first. What can you tell us about this claim from Prigozhin and how Moscow is responding tonight? Well, actually, Alex, that's just one of many claims made by Prigozhin today that's clearly going to get him in trouble. He started the day with a video interview in which he claimed that Russia had no pretext for invading Ukraine last year. Then he went on to make this claim that the Russian military leadership, without specifying who or what exactly attacked Wagner base, killing dozens of his mercenaries. Now, it's not clear where that base is. Some video is circulating in social media of that base. The Russian Defense Ministry has said that this is simply not true. The Russian media, Russian state media is saying that President Putin is being kept aware of these claims by Wagner and the situation in general. And that, quote, all necessary measures are being taken. Now, Prigozhin went on to say that the evil being carried out by the Russian military leadership must be stopped. Now, many people are taking this as a call for a coup although Prigozhin went out, came out later and denied it. Now, as a result of this obvious shock of instability in Russia, there are reports on social media that military vehicles have been seen outside the State Duma and Moscow, as well as in the city of Rostov. Russian city to the east of here. Now, in reaction to Prigozhin statements, the FSB, the Russian Federal Security Service, has announced that it has begun criminal proceedings against Prigozhin for organizing armed and armed insurrection. And this is according to the statement from the SS FSB. Punishable by 12 to 20 years in prison. Now, the Ukrainians are obviously watching this with intense interest. Now, we did see a tweet from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry simply saying we are watching Alex, there certainly is an earthquake in Russia's war in Ukraine. Ben Wedeman, thank you very much. We have new reporting now on the U.S. reaction to this showdown between Russia and the Volgograd mercenary group. Here's our Pentagon correspondent, Oren Liebermann. Oren, what are you being told? Alec, certainly after Ben laid it all out like that, the friction we're seeing between Prigozhin and the Russian military leadership, it's easy to see why US officials are watching this so closely and are tracking this so closely to see how this develops. The US has watched and we have watched friction between the two in the past, threats coming from Prigozhin aimed either at the Russian military or its leadership Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu or the Chief of General Staff, Valery Gerasimov. But one U.S. official tells us there is a sense here that this goes above and beyond that this isn't the usual rhetoric. There is something different here. There is something perhaps more escalatory here. And that's one of the reasons the US is watching this so closely to see how this develops over the course of the next several hours and days. It's also worth pointing out that Prigozhin has normally attacked Russian military leadership following some Ukrainian battlefield success or breakthrough or tactical success. And it doesn't appear to be the case here. There doesn't appear to have been some sort of Ukrainian success that that precipitated these sudden threats by Prigozhin. And yet we have seen this friction with what appears to be an increasing frequency. In fact, just early last week, Russia's Ministry of Defense said that private contractors, military contractors, would have to sign contracts to try to bring them in line with Russian military leadership and the Russian military itself. And it was Prigozhin who said that Wagner would not be doing that. And so you see that leading into this friction here as the U.S. watches this, Alex. The U.S. and certainly the rest of Netto are going to be watching this very very closely. Oren Liebermann at the Pentagon, thanks very much. Let's get more now with our military and Russia experts, Colonel Cedric Leighton and Dmitri Alperovitch. Thank you both for joining me. Dmitri, I want to go to you first. You say that Prigozhin massively overreached. You're comparing this to gang warfare. This is very different than what Prigozhin has said before. It is an escalation. What do you think is behind it? Well, what percussion has been doing it for months now is criticize. And, of course, the Ministry of Defense Minister Shoigu, Google chief of General Staff Gerasimov for being incompetent, trying to draw distinction between his own capable Wagner forces that were able to take back mud by destroying it, and the Russian military that has been suffering loss after loss. But what he couldn't do. And the big mistake that he made today is to go after the pretext for this war. When you announced that this war was launched under false pretenses. He blamed Shoigu for it. But everyone knows that Putin is the one that ultimately made the decision. And thus he gave the opening to for Shoigu and others that have hated him for a long time. In the Kremlin apparatus, as well as in the FSB to go after him. And Colonel Leighton, as Dimitri noted there, this is a few that has been brewing for quite some time. Production has been lobbying those bombs for four months. But how do you assess this claim that production made, that Russian forces, the Russian military, actually targeted and killed many Wagner mercenaries as production claimed? Yeah, Alex, that's a very inflammatory claim under almost any condition that you can imagine. So you know what? Prigozhin seems to be doing here is upping the ante. He's basically saying this, you know, this this area has gone way beyond what I've intended. It's gone way beyond what the Russian state should be doing. And the Russian state has killed its own people. So that is a very significant I think, departure from the messages that we've seen from Prigozhin before. It's much more virulent and much more a part of a campaign that seems to be designed to topple the Ministry of Defense, at the very least, possibly Putin himself. I don't think it will be successful. So, Colonel, what are you going to be watching for now as the FSB is calling on foreign fighters to detain Prigozhin Well, I'm going to be watching for exactly that, Alex. Whether or not the BAUCHNER forces remain loyal to Prigozhin or whether they switch allegiance to Putin and and Shoigu. We've had generals come up on social media that have urged the Wagner Group to actually disband and to actually detain, as you mentioned, Prigozhin. We've also had other members call for a calm in this situation. And, of course, the broadcasts on state television have been, I think, a very significant departure from what we normally seen when it comes to these kinds of spats. We'll be watching for these kinds of tensions to unfold and whether or not Prigozhin is a free man. Dimitri, same question to you. What do you expect the next moves to be Well, what you're seeing right now is armored vehicles being deployed on the streets of Moscow for the first time since the early 1990s. Out of fear, of course, that Wagner may have supporters that may help them orchestrate a coup. So Putin does not want to take any chances. He's deploying not just the FSB and the Russian military, but the Guardian the National Guard, effectively his pretorian guard, hundreds of thousands of men that have armor that are very loyal to him. So he's got the overwhelming advantage here. I don't expect that Prigozhin and Wagner would be successful here. I don't even expect that they would survive the weekend or at least remain free, man. But it's certainly interesting that Putin is very concerned, perhaps for the first time in his presidency, about a potential for a coup. Dmitri, have you seen fractures within Wagner? Would you expect Wagner fighters to heed that call to arrest Prigozhin I'm not sure if they would arrest him, but certainly if you're a Wagner personnel right now, the last thing you want to do is either be killed by the Russian military and the Russian Guardia or be arrested and then potentially be sent again to fight in Ukraine. Now is a conflict yet again. So not a lot of good choices for them. Most of them, I would expect, would probably try to disappear and try to get home. Colonel Leighton, do you agree with with Dmitri that precautions life is now at risk Absolutely, Alex. I think Dimitri's spot on in this in this case, because what you're looking at is not only a power play, but it seems to be a power play done by someone who is not quite ready in terms of the forces that he has at his disposal to actually mount a coup or other, you know, other type of action of that type So I don't think he'll be successful and I think that his demise may be coming up very shortly. And Dmitri, in terms of what could happen in the coming weeks, and days, we're in the middle of this counteroffensive. Putin has acknowledged challenges during this period. Do you think that these developments make it more difficult for Putin to to spin the realities of how his forces are doing on the ground? I don't think so. I think he can present this as a rogue paramilitary, a contractor, Prigozhin, that is trying to actually not even orchestrate a coup against Putin. He's been very careful to promote his support of Putin. He's saying that he wants to clean the Russian military and the general staff of the traitors that he caught, as he calls them, that that are just destroying the Russian military in Ukraine. And he doesn't necessarily want to stop the war. He just thinks that he can prosecute it better. But look, Alex, the way you orchestrate successful coups is not by announcing them far in advance, especially against the state that controls the military, controls the security services, has enormous firepower. You try to do it quietly and then announce that you've been successful. So Prigozhin is doing this completely backwards, and that's why he's very likely to fail. All right. Well, thank you both for joining me to break down these stunning development Colonel Cedric Leighton, Dmitri Alperovitch, thanks to you both.
