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Leader Of Mercenary Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin Turns His Columns Around From Approach To Moscow; Belarussian Government Claims Deal Brokered By President Of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko Led To Wagner Group Turning Away From Moscow; Ukrainian Forces Continue Preparations For Counteroffensive Against Russian Troops In Ukraine; Analysts Examine Possible Infighting Among Officials In Putin's Government Which Led To Wagner Group's Potential March On Moscow. Aired 2-3p ET

Aired June 24, 2023 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[14:00:14]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again, I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Thank you so much for joining us for our special breaking news coverage of the crisis in Russia.

Also joining us, CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour in London.

Let's begin with this breaking news. The head of the mercenary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, says he is calling off his troops from their march on Moscow, potentially ending what appeared to be a possible coup attempt. Officials in Belarus claim their president Alexander Lukashenko had reached a deal with the Wagner boss to halt his troops. Prigozhin says his private army had seized control of Russian military facilities in two critical cities, Rostov-on-Don, that's about 700 miles south of Moscow, and the city of Voronezh, about the halfway point on the road to Moscow.

President Putin called the actions by Prigozhin a betrayal and a stab in the back to the Russian people, and warned those who follow Prigozhin will pay a price.

Christiane, both confusing, complex, all of this is just -- just a toss up in the air. Amazing.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Yes, and actually General "Spider" Marks reminded me of Churchill's long, long, long time ago description of Russia as a riddle wrapped up in an enigma, and all the rest. In other words, you just don't know until you know.

So it looks like Prigozhin was trying to send a message to the Ministry of Defense and to the head of the Russian armed forces. Those people have been his targets since the beginning of this war, and he's complained bitterly that they have completely messed up and literally botched the invasion and the war in Ukraine, and that he has presented himself and his independent paramilitary force as the Russian saviors, if you like. And pretty much they are the own ones who have scored any, even though they might be minute, actual battlefield victories.

And so it appears that he has now been pressured by Putin, who got Alexander Lukashenko, his big ally in Belarus, to engineer some kind of about-face. And according to Prigozhin, that is what has happened. We're waiting to be able to broadcast his latest audio to explain to everybody exactly what he thinks he's doing next.

And we've got full coverage on this breaking story. We have CNN chief international security correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, national security reporter Natasha Bertrand, and the former CIA chief of Russia operations and CNN national security analyst Steve Hall.

So Nick, we were on together as this breaking news came of this latest intervention by Prigozhin and his latest telegram audio message, having taken a very significant military headquarters in the last 24 hours. Do we think now that the Prigozhin threat is over?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: No. I think it would be premature to suggest that. And indeed, he says the only reason he's turning around his columns on the way to Moscow, having, he says, got 200 kilometers within the city outskirts, is to stop bloodshed. He doesn't make a reference to a negotiation where the president of Belarus. That's done by the Belarusian president's own staff, suggesting that, in fact, Lukashenko intervened after speaking to Putin, and some sort of deal appears to have been hatched.

But I don't think we know the entirety of it. It may be that there are going to be significant changes at the head of Russia's Ministry of Defense. But even if the ultimate targets of Prigozhin's march on Moscow end up being removed from their jobs, and that's the defense minister Shoigu, the head of the Ukrainian campaign Gerasimov and chief of staff, still he's really crossed the Rubicon here, frankly, taking care of Rostov, moving through Voronezh, blockades put into Lipetsk, and putting that kind of military pressure on Putin, causing Putin to make that very stern speech today. It's quite clear that -- to me, it will be hard to suddenly put the clock back and have Prigozhin a valued member of the Russian military establishment.

So I think there are more details to come from this. I'm sure there are some who will say it's smart of Prigozhin not to send a relatively small column of Wagner troops into the massive, millions-strong metropolis of Moscow where they're bound to, frankly, get lost amongst police forces trying to control such a vast area. But it is fair to look at the last 24 hours as a time which has significantly weakened Vladimir Putin. And I don't think we've fully known the entirety of how that's played out. Startling to see this, and a remarkable moment of Prigozhin suddenly, it seems, deciding to deescalate.

[14:05:04]

But he is vague about where his columns will be, in field camps, he says, they'll go after they've turned around. That could me on the way to Moscow. It could mean all the way back in Rostov, or even in Ukraine. That's, I think to him, to elaborate upon. But startling, too, to see the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a man who Putin has often used as sort of a subordinate to be ordered around, to sort of intervene, it seems at this last moment, and really save Putin from the potential of some sort of armed insurrection.

So I think a lot more information we need to learn about this. But the threat for now lessened, but we still just don't know, frankly, what got us to this moment.

AMANPOUR: And indeed, Natasha, let's go to you, because obviously the White House, the president, his NATO allies, G-7 allies, they also were caught somewhat off-guard. They also thought this was a very serious challenge of potentially showing the fragility of the Putin regime. What are we hearing more now about the president, the military in the United States, heads of the military? What are they doing and thinking right now?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Reporter: Yes, Christiane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, he was scheduled to take a trip to the Middle East this weekend, to Israel and Jordan. And that trip has now been canceled so that he can stay in Washington to monitor the developments unfolding in Russia and of course brief President Biden. The same thing really with the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. He was supposed to go to Denmark this weekend for a conference. He instead participated virtually and will be going ton Camp David with President Biden to monitor all of these very fast-moving developments coming out of Russia.

So U.S. officials were clearly caught off-guard by the speed with which this unfolded Friday and really escalated into today. And of course, this further -- these further developments causing even greater whiplash. But we are told that U.S. intelligence actually did see signs that Prigozhin was perhaps preparing some kind of significant challenge to Russia's military leadership. And actually intelligence officials briefed congressional leadership earlier this week on the potential that Prigozhin could make some kind of a dramatic move.

Now it wasn't clear when that would happen or what the ultimate aim of that would actually be. Would he try to march toward Moscow, would he try to pose a challenge to the Russian president directly, or would this simply be a confrontation with Russian military leadership. They didn't know, but what they did see were signs that Prigozhin was massing military equipment in concerning areas, that he was perhaps building up his forces near Russia. And so all of this contributed to a picture that was still a bit hazy around the edges, but that U.S. officials did see was cause for concern, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Natasha, thanks.

Steve Hall, you have studied this stuff with your intelligence hat as CIA analyst for many, many years. So if you were to analyze right now, do you see this as a significant threat that Putin was able to sort of cleverly head off, or that he's actually really in control and Prigozhin was throwing, sorry, his toys out of the pram again, like he did on Armistice Day, threatening to this, that, and the other, until he didn't and he stayed in Ukraine with his forces. What do you think is going on?

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I wish I could say that I had been an analyst, but unfortunately, I was an ops officer. But I'll give it a shot anyway.

I don't think this is -- this is not over by any way, shape, or form. I don't think we're going to wake up either tomorrow morning or Monday morning and say wow, that was interesting, I'm glad it's over. There is little doubt in my mind that Prigozhin must have done some significant planning before he started his activities. So he didn't just wake up this morning and say how about we do this, or even a week or a month ago. He has to have some of the most senior Putin guys at least aware of his concerns and perhaps willing to look the other way as he starts to do things like either march toward Moscow or take over larger cities and Russian military garrisons in the country. That's not something that you just do and be willing to suffer the consequences unless you have at least some tacit support inside the Kremlin.

Now it's entirely possible that what he has decided is, OK, now is not the time, or it's possible that some of these folks that he's been talking to, probably not Putin, inside the Kremlin have said, wait a minute, now is not the best time. So my theory is, is that what he's doing is perhaps slowing down for now having made a very important point to Putin, and I think having weakened Putin significantly.

The Lukashenko part of this, Lukashenko's a puppet. These are table scraps for him. It's stuff that makes him look like the big man that he wants to be, and every once in a while Putin will send him something. I don't think it's incredibly important, and I don't believe that he was instrumental in reaching some sort of agreement with Prigozhin on this.

[14:10:01]

AMANPOUR: Given that people have described Putin's grip on power and the structure of it as fairly mafioso-like, to coin a word, how can he let Prigozhin survive? This is a guy who tried to stab him in the back, although he says he never tried to stab Putin, it was the military establishment, and he's turned his back now, Prigozhin, it appears. Can he survive actually?

HALL: Well, it all depends on the power that he wields. Another reason this isn't simply going to be over is because, of course, Prigozhin has embarrassed Putin significantly. And Putin will not forget that. But also, of course, we have to remember when the FSB got involved publicly on this, in other words the FSB was -- I think the Kremlin announced formally that the FSB is investigating this as criminal activity, that's Putin. Putin is closest to the FSB. The FSB, of course, is the closest thing we have to the KGB successor organization where Putin used to work.

So when I saw that the FSB was being directly involved now and there was a criminal investigation ongoing, that means Putin is taking very, very, very close interest in this. That's not going to go away. I suppose it could. They could simply say we decided not to prosecute him, or there was no evidence of criminal activity. I doubt it. It's pressure being put on Prigozhin by the Kremlin trying to remind him. But at this point, again, Prigozhin, even though his army might not be big enough to make it to Moscow or have a significant impact there just on the battlefield, he's a guy with a private army. He can't just be written off anymore really by anybody in the Kremlin.

AMANPOUR: Well, exactly. And I guess obviously the west and Ukraine are looking very carefully and have hoped for a long time that there would be a proper challenge to Putin to stop this war. But there's also the battlefield to talk about. And we just spoke to a Putin ally, Sergei Markov from his own party, who said that Putin could not afford to have a multi-pronged, multi-fronted war against him, whether it's within with the paramilitary group, whether it's with Ukrainians, whoever else it's with. So Putin has also dodged a bit of a bullet here.

HALL: Possibly. It really depends on a lot of stuff that I think is going on behind the scenes that is extremely difficult for us to get a grip around. We don't know, for example, whether Prigozhin was offered something by somebody in the Kremlin to stop. We don't know whether Prigozhin said, look, unless the following things happen, I'm going to make your life even that much harder, both on the battlefield with Ukraine and inside of Russia.

Either way, it's bad, bad, and bad for Putin. There is very little upside, if any, that I can see from this whole event. He's going to emerge from this significantly weakened, which I think is going to strengthen those senior advisers around him and make them think twice, I think, about what the future is, at least with Putin in charge.

AMANPOUR: Steve Hall, thank you.

And I want to now turn to historian Nina Khrushcheva in Moscow. We talked to her a couple of hours ago when this was actually in a different trajectory. Now Nina, you're hearing that it's turned around according to Prigozhin. How do you interpret this, and basically what are you hearing in Moscow now? Is it being reported?

NINA KHRUSHCHEVA, CO-AUTHOR, "IN PUTIN'S FOOTSTEPS": It is being reported. It first was reported as Alexander Lukashenko, the great peacemaker, has been -- who negotiated with Prigozhin with Putin's approval. And as Lukashenko said, there are two sides on the table, and they should be satisfied with the agreement.

I'm not entirely sure. I was listening to your previous guest, and I'm not entirely sure what Prigozhin, how Prigozhin can escape this, because there is a criminal investigation. Putin is a man who does not put up with betrayal. And so that probably is something that they would have or will play out later on.

I just spoke to a variety of people around me in the building, and there is a sigh of relief and one older woman said, well, I'm sure it -- I wasn't sure it was going resolve very quickly because, of course, who is that Prigozhin to challenge Putin? And so of course he's going to be the greatest president.

So I actually think that it is -- I agree it is very bad for Putin because it does show how this whole apparatus is being very, very thinly still stick together and almost falling apart. But I would also imagine it might strengthen Putin's hand a little bit because exactly that. He was able to somehow do something like that, turning Prigozhin around. And that probably would be good enough for him for now to keep his power, which I think is basically what he's doing with all his words and all his actions.

[14:15:04]

So just go back a little bit in history and see if it's relevant at all to what's happening in the Kremlin right now. You said that when a leader is challenged in this way, even though he gets out of it, and people could see that there are chinks in the armor. And if anybody does actually disagree with him within his inner circle, it could strengthen them. Do you think that that's a possibility, and what are the historic sort of references in Russia?

KHRUSHCHEVA: Well, I mean, Russia, as you know, is byzantine, opaque power. And so history is only a guide to some degree. It can never be exactly the same. And so, but also for the Putin entourage -- and we've seen it -- that is not a mystery that things are going badly. That is not a mystery that he's not as strong as he appears to be or says that he is.

It is more important that he's there because none of them, or so it appears, have enough power to take over and undermine the rest. So if somebody goes up, somebody goes down, and those who go down cannot afford to go down. So that has been going on. And I think that's kind of Prigozhin and his -- and I'm sure that people behind him close to Putin who were able to take advantage of.

But it doesn't seem for now that it -- or it could appear for now that Putin is still more viable for them in charge rather than Prigozhin with his military army that is completely, completely, completely can get off the rails and is completely unpredictable. And so that's also something that can, rather than weakening Putin's hand, which is already very weak, for a bit can strengthen until other parties around Putin can get strong enough, or Prigozhin doesn't get another lease on life, which I believe if he's not completely taken down, he probably will reappear again.

AMANPOUR: And he has -- let's face it, this is all in the context of a massive war that's going pretty badly for Russia now. It's also slow in the counteroffensive from the Ukrainians. And the Prigozhin people, the Wagner Group, are the only ones who have made significant, if you like, if you call Bakhmut significant, captures. What does this say to you and to others who are watching the progression of the war?

KHRUSHCHEVA: That's what I actually think that that's why Prigozhin is screaming, is because he thinks he's the great war hero. And suddenly he's being ignored or he is not being paid attention enough. And in some ways -- we've discussed it with many people including a very excellent Russian analyst who used to be in Moscow, and she and I agreed that probably Prigozhin was screaming more out of weakness because he's not paid attention to, he's not given enough due. And I think that's why he basically challenged Putin a month ago in an interview, and then Putin didn't pay attention. And so Prigozhin is now doing this.

So in many ways, I think neither Putin nor Prigozhin are strong enough, getting strong out of this particular situation, which to some degree in a weird way balance it out, because Prigozhin now cannot really be just the one force. And that's the message of him stepping back is that he's not the one force that is fighting in war in Ukraine. Whether it goes badly or not, it's another question. But Prigozhin is not going to be primary fighter anymore.

AMANPOUR: It's really fascinating. Nina Khrushcheva, historian and also the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, thank you.

Coming up, we're following, as you know, all of these developments in our special coverage. We'll continue after a quick break.

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[14:23:15]

WHITFIELD: Welcome back. We continue to follow breaking developments out of Russia. A short time ago the leader of the Russian private military group Wagner announced that he is turning his forces around from that march toward Moscow. Belarus claims that its president, Alexander Lukashenko, had brokered the deal. Wagner forces had been on the move inside Russia, even claiming to capture key military facilities in two Russian cities. But it appears that advance is over, at least for now.

This is still a very rapidly developing situation on the ground. For more on this new development, let's bring in CNN's Nathan Hodge who was the Moscow bureau chief. Nathan, good to see you. You wrote a CNN analysis saying that Putin is facing the law of unintended consequences. What exactly does that mean?

NATHAN HODGE, CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF: Fredricka, it's important to remember amidst all of this drama with Wagner and Wagner's forces converging on Moscow, that once upon a time Yevgeny Prigozhin was performing really valuable services for the Russian government and for Russia foreign policy. He was providing a former of deniability. So whether it was bankrolling the notorious troll farms that were involved in U.S. election interference in 2016, or raising mercenary forces to fight in Syria or in eastern Ukraine, the Russian government was always able to basically say, well, we don't have mercenaries. It's not acknowledged. Perhaps the people who are hacking into the U.S. elections are just patriotic hackers. So it provided sort of a fig leaf of deniability for the Kremlin.

[14:25:03]

And Prigozhin was performing in some ways, acting as an informal arm of Russian foreign policy. Now with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, all of that changed. Prigozhin, because of the apparent battlefield successes of Wagner in Ukraine, particularly around Bakhmut, has been able to raise his public profile. He's become lionized in Russian state media, whereas previously his existence was more or less not acknowledged, or basically not denied -- or not acknowledged at all. So I think that as his public profile grew, this sort of became a monster of Putin's own making, Fredricka. WHITFIELD: So then now with this apparent insurrection attempt, now of

course the about-face, do you agree with Nina Khrushcheva who just told Christiane Amanpour moments ago that she believes now this helps reveal a weakened Vladimir Putin?

HODGE: Absolutely, because previously kind of the deal was among Russian elites was that they were able to both compete amongst each other for influence, for resources, for business interests, as long as the, sort of the boss remains Vladimir Putin. He was the final arbiter of all disputes amongst Russian elites.

But now he's been presented with a much more open challenge, and one that's really been building over months. It's interesting to kind of look at Prigozhin's language. He's largely taken aim at the military leadership, Russia's uniformed military, specifically Sergei Shoigu, the minister of defense, and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff, without ever crossing the line into sort of openly criticizing Putin.

It's important to point out that he's not a critic of the war in Ukraine. He thinks it needs to be waged differently, more brutally perhaps. But that is really kind of no longer the equation here that we're dealing with, because he's crossed the line into basically raising that flag of insurrection, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And so now one has to wonder what will happen to Prigozhin.

HODGE: Absolutely. I think that we're going to see in the coming days whether Prigozhin is the man who led a failed insurrection, or whether he's going to remain a person of stature. I think that it's clear to see from the response of the Russian authorities -- for instance, with Russian regional governors coming out and pledging their loyalties that basically the state now wants to see everyone's cards on the table to show that they are on side with Putin. But then how do you deal with somebody who so brazenly confronted the Russian central government and is waving in the face of Vladimir Putin the fact that he's given up his monopoly on the use of military force with this mercenary army, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All fascinating. Nathan Hodge, thanks so much.

So much more of our continuing coverage on this power struggle in Russia. A former Russian foreign minister will be joining us live next.

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[14:32:38]

AMANPOUR: Back now to our breaking news. The leader of the mercenary group the Wagner Group announced that he's turning his forces away from their march toward Moscow. That is Yevgeny Prigozhin. And it comes amid a deal apparently brokered by the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Joining me now is the former Russian prime minister Andrei Kozyrev. Welcome back to our program, Andrei Kozyrev. You were foreign minister from 1990 to 1996, that includes the time when Gorbachev suffered a coup. So I just want to ask you what do you think was going on? Was Prigozhin trying to conduct a coup? What actually do you think his motivation was?

ANDREI KOZYREV, FORMER RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, it's very difficult to pass a final judgment, but I believe that it's just a traditional Kremlin fight, or fight under the rug. But now it came to the open because it's different time, it's time of information era. And especially in time of the war, which they cannot win, if not losing.

So under these circumstances it's kind of fight on their rug, and even on camera. But don't -- I mean, it's deadly fight, but it's also reality. So these guys are all of the same kind of league, all of the same -- against each other. They are fighting for their piece of pie, and pie is becoming thinner because of the war, and they fight becomes thicker, so to say. The fight becomes more intensive.

AMANPOUR: So Andrei Kozyrev, do you include Putin in this gang as a gangster, and do you think he is strengthened or weakened by this?

KOZYREV: Absolutely, he is probably godfather of the whole arrangement.

[14:35:04]

And Prigozhin was his creature. He created Prigozhin. And he owns the Belarusian dictator who depends totally on his support, because people there are against the dictator. So those are all participants in the same -- the same drama, if you want. And then, yes, of course, Putin is one of those. It well might be that Prigozhin really wants to unseat Putin, but I don't believe he ever thought of that. And probably he could, even if he has an upper hand, he probably will keep Putin as a front man, as a puppet, because it's very convenient.

AMANPOUR: Wow.

KOZYREV: Yes. But if it does not have the ultimate kind of upper hand, they will try to find an agreement. They are bargaining now behind the scenes. But it does not mean that they would not use force for this.

AMANPOUR: OK. So let me ask you a final question. When we first had you on after Putin's invasion, this latest invasion of Ukraine, you said that when Putin makes that kind of move he has to be punched back strong in the nose. That's the only language he understands. Do you think Ukraine and its western backers have punched Putin strongly enough in the nose?

KOZYREV: Unfortunately not, but there is still a chance. And there is still a necessity, especially under the circumstances when those are now fighting almost openly. That's the right time to give Ukraine the most powerful, most modern weapons, and make their offensive successful. And the war, if the west helps Ukraine to end the war fast, then it will be of much less importance what kind of -- it will go on, this fight of the bulldogs there. So it's OK, let them do it in their cage, but not on Ukrainian soil.

AMANPOUR: Andrei Kozyrev, former Russian foreign minister on the fight of the bulldogs, as you put it. Thank you very much indeed. Those are the ones in Moscow.

And as the situation unfolds in Russia, what does all this mean for Ukraine as we've just been discussing their counteroffensive? The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine joins us to discuss that next.

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[14:42:12]

WHITFIELD: Back now to our breaking news story and the rapidly changing situation unfolding in Russia. Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has now published a new audio recording claiming that he is turning his forces around from a march toward Moscow. This is new video into CNN showing Wagner forces apparently being cheered by residents of a Russian town that they had recently taken control of. Russian President Vladimir Putin had vowed to punish the armed rebellion led by that mercenary group. This stunning power struggle has thrown the Kremlin into a major crisis.

William Taylor is the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. He is also the vice president for Europe and Russia at the U.S. Institute of Peace. So good to see you, ambassador. So we're being told that U.S. and western officials were caught off-guard by Prigozhin's escalation in Russia. Do you agree with the former Russian foreign minister who was just on the air who said this is typical feuding, which is usually under the rug, but because of today's information flow, this gangster- like feuding, his words, you know, for a piece of the pie is now out in the open?

AMBASSADOR WILLIAM TAYLOR, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Fredricka, it's out in the open, and it is serious. This is not just your normal feud under the rug somewhere. This is actually military forces moving against each other. There are reports of actual conflict, of fighting, of shooting back and forth between the Wagner forces and the Ministry of Defense forces. So this is not under the rug. This is -- he's right, the foreign minister is right, of course, these are thugs, and these are gangsters, it's the right way to think about it. But this is serious conflict.

WHITFIELD: Prigozhin now says that his forces are no longer -- they turned around, they're no longer marching toward Moscow. But what, in your view, is going to be the future of these two men, these leaders working toward a common goal, still, of continued fighting in Ukraine?

TAYLOR: Unlikely, unlikely that they'll be working toward a common goal. Prigozhin has made it clear that certainly Putin's deputies, that is the minister of defense, the chief of staff of the army, are incompetent, and he says are responsible -- Prigozhin says they are responsible for the deaths of thousands of Russian soldiers, Russian youth.

And this is a serious charge. We say yes, he's vindicated, he's turned around. I don't know what that means yet. I don't know what that means. What I do know, though, is that the focus of the Russian army is no longer on Ukraine, which gives Ukraine a great opportunity to do what they've been planning to do for months, which is counterattack to try to push the Russians out of their country.

[14:45:08]

WHITFIELD: So it seemed like it would give Ukraine an advantage over the last few hours when it seemed as though there was this apparent insurrection. But now that there is an about-face, it seems like there isn't going to be much time for Ukraine to take advantage of this, or do you see this fissure, this power struggle still creates an opportunity for Ukraine?

TAYLOR: There's definitely an opportunity for Ukraine. So one of the towns, one of the Russian cities that Prigozhin took is Rostov, Rostov-on-Don. And that is the source, the place, the headquarters of the main Russian coordinating center of the war in Ukraine. So he's got that under control. The Ukrainians have been preparing this big counteroffensive for months. And indeed, they've started it weeks ago in preparation. They have been probing. So they are ready. They've got their new brigades, nine brigades ready to go. It's not that they have to mount them, it's not that they have to bring them on. They are ready. So this is the time for the Ukrainians to take advantage.

WHITFIELD: And quickly, we know the president is at Camp David. He's been conversing with allies. What is the position, in your view, behind closed doors, the strategy that the U.S. wants to take right now? The contingency plans, what would be put in place? Because we know publicly the president hasn't said anything, the White House has not said much.

TAYLOR: Fredricka, I think the right posture for us certainly in public is to say nothing. The Russians are tearing themselves apart. When your enemy is tearing himself apart, then let them do it. Don't say anything. We're not responsible, the Ukrainians are not responsible for this, the Russians are responsible for this. Let them do that.

Behind the scenes and behind closed doors, we are, I'm sure, being alert and having our forces in Europe on high alert just to be sure that nothing spills over into NATO territory.

WHITFIELD: Ambassador William Taylor, thank you so much. Good to see you.

TAYLOR: Thank you, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Straight ahead, new reporting from Ukraine. What President Zelenskyy claims Russia's Putin is now doing.

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[14:51:59]

AMANPOUR: Moments ago, new reaction from the developments in Russia coming from Ukraine. CNN's senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman is joining us live from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. So Ben, what are you learning? What's going on there?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Ukrainians have been fairly silent since this announcement came out about progressive turning around and going back to his bases. That really was preceded by almost 24 hours of people transfixed with events, Christiane, in Russia. But now it appears that we're back to reality. This is a country that's supposed to be launching a counteroffensive against the Russian forces that are occupying southern and eastern Ukraine.

Now, before the announcement came out of this standdown by Mr. Progressive, we did get a statement from -- a recorded statement from President Zelenskyy in which he said, the man from the Kremlin is obviously very afraid and probably hiding somewhere, not showing himself. I'm sure he is no longer in Moscow.

Now, Kremlin officials denied that, even though there were earlier reports that Putin's plane had left Moscow heading for Saint Petersburg. But there doesn't seem to be much basis in this. But, certainly, for this period of crisis in Russia, the Ukrainians were certainly entertaining the possibility that Russia was falling apart on the brink of civil war. That all seems to have passed.

AMANPOUR: And of course, in the context of what you're watching and reporting on, and that is in the counteroffensive. So we've been describing it as being fairly sort of plodding for the while. But you've said that you see quite a lot of preparation and staging in the area close to where you are.

WEDEMAN: Well, yes. What we saw midweek was that 44 square miles or 113 square kilometer area that the Ukrainians claim to have liberated where there are eight very small villages. It seemed like a pretty modest effort. We didn't see a lot of hardware, a lot of troops in that area or the area leading up to it.

However, later in the week, yesterday, in fact, we were in another area where we saw quite the opposite, that there were a lot of troops, a lot of equipment, western-supplied equipment seemed to be poised to go into action. Now, of course, now is, perhaps, the moment is ripe given this 24 hours of chaos in the Kremlin, for the Ukrainians to make their big move. But at the moment, we know nothing, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Well, you're going to be there, and tell us when you learn more about this really vital next few days in military counteroffensive. Ben, thank you so much.

[14:55:01]

And let us just reaffirm and reconfirm exactly what we know, and that is that progressive, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group has released a new audio confirming that they are, in fact, turning around. Take a listen to a short clip of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN, HEAD OF THE WAGNER GROUP (through translator): Therefore, realizing all the responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be shed from one of the sides, we turn our columns around and leave in the opposite direction to the field camps according to the plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So, we don't quite know what these field camps are or where they are, whether he's going back to Rostov-on-Don or whatever. But let's bring in CNN senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen joining me now from Berlin. Fred, so, it turns out that Prigozhin has been persuaded, I guess, by Putin, Lukashenko, not to go any further. He basically says in this audio, more of it, that he did this so- called march for justice because they, I guess he means the defense ministry, threatened to disband Wagner. Tell us more about Wagner and why it's so important and this historic fight between him and the Russian defense establishment?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that ongoing feud, and I think it's something that we've heard over the past couple of months really, especially while that battle for Bakhmut was going on. And I think that's really something that set this big feud between Yevgeny Prigozhin and the defense minister Sergei Shoigu, and, of course, also the chief of staff Valery Gerasimov, because as the battle for Bakhmut was going on, and it was extremely brutal. There was a lot of munitions that were used, a lot of artillery shells that were being used, one of the things that Yevgeny Prigozhin kept saying is, look, I'm the one who can achieve progress. The defense ministry can't achieve progress. But I need the munitions to do that. And he always felt that he wasn't getting those munitions. And he felt that there was a campaign behind that, that Sergei Shoigu wanted him to fail.

So this feud has been playing out very publicly for a very long time. It has now apparently come to a head, especially since the battle of Bakhmut was over. Of course, there were certain catalysts for that as well. For instance, the defense minister Sergei Shoigu signing a decree a couple weeks ago that all the private military companies in Russia had to sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry. Yevgeny Prigozhin said he was absolutely not going to do that, accused Sergei Shoigu of trying to get rid of Wagner, trying to take control of Wagner.

So this big feud has been going on for a very long time. It certainly seems to have come to a head today. And I think what your guests, what our guests were saying is absolutely correct, really unclear whether or not this is it or whether this will go to another round, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Fred Pleitgen, we will be waiting to see that. Thanks so much.

Our special coverage continues after a quick break.

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