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Wagner Chief Says His Forces Ending March To Moscow; U.S. Intelligence Saw Signs Prigozhin Planning To Challenge Russian Military; Zelenskyy Calls Wagner Group's Challenge To Russian Leadership A Mutiny; U.S. Closely Watching Power Struggle In Russia; Who Is Yevgeny Prigozhin? Aired 3-4p ET

Aired June 24, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:20]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: Hello again, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield, alongside CNN's chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour in London. And this is our special coverage of the breaking news out of Russia.

The head of the mercenary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, says he is calling off his troops from their march on Moscow, ending for now what appeared to be a possible coup attempt. This is part of an audio statement released by Prigozhin just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN, HEAD OF WAGNER GROUP (through translator): Therefore, realizing all the responsibilities 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 field camps, according to the plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Officials in Belarus claimed their president Alexander Lukashenko had reached a deal with the Wagner boss to halt his troops. And earlier, Prigozhin said 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, which is about half way 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 anyone who followed Prigozhin will pay a price.

So, Christiane, I mean, what an about-face. You know, still uncertain who got the upper hand here and this seems to only be a pivotal chapter. There's more.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Indeed, Fredricka. And as the former Russian foreign minister told us these are bulldogs and gangsters fighting, he said, and the fight is way out into the open. It's obviously a very serious one. And we've got full coverage of the breaking news.

We have CNN chief international security correspondent with us, Nick Paton Walsh, national security reporter Natasha Bertrand.

So, let me first ask you, Nick, because I guess the question now is not only where Prigozhin will take his forces back to where are those field camps that he's talking about and do we think he can survive this blatant challenge to Putin?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes. Look, it's not really in Putin's Russia where you march your armed insurrection to where he claimed was 200 kilometers the outskirts of the capital and then say, oh, you know what, I don't really want to shed any blood here. I'm just going to turn around. So clearly, I think we will see more fallout from this.

Quite whether or not the Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, I think it's fair to say a man that Vladimir Putin kind of treats with contempt, as a subordinate, half the time somehow magically parachuted into this and intervened to calm everybody down, we simply don't know. But at this point, obviously, Yevgeny Prigozhin has decided that marching into the capital with what presumably is not a big enough force to military occupied was a bad idea.

And he certainly made his point throughout the day in which, I'm sure, the Russian elite may have been wondering quite how Saturday would indeed end. Now there are various suggestions that perhaps part of these discussions may have involved promises to ultimately remove the Russian top brass that Prigozhin has been railing against for months. But we haven't had any official indication towards that at all.

Where do Prigozhin's troops go? Well, there's videos now from the streets of Rostov-on-Don into which they swept almost it seemed unopposed. They said without firing a shot over the last night of them packing up and leaving. But rapturous applause, frankly, from some of the locals. You can make what you want of that. That's the show of limited public support. But we've had an extraordinary 24 hours for Vladimir Putin's grip on Russia.

Things that you would never possibly have conceived could happen before this war began. Shaking the notion that he is the one calling the shots here. We'll have to see what he now does. Does he pardon Prigozhin, a man who he said was behind an armed insurrection? Just earlier on today he would face inevitable punishment. What does he do with the well-trained, seasoned fighters of Wagner who've been essential to Russia's war on the frontlines?

Does he offer them immunity and send them back to that war? And ultimately, too, what does he do with the top brass in the Russian Ministry of Defense who Prigozhin initially had in his sights? Although we are really looking here at I think a longer-term issue for Putin's authority and ultimately a question as to whether he ends this episode now having to accept that Prigozhin calls so many of the shots in Russia.

Startling times. I mean, I haven't even got to what this means for the frontline in the war in Ukraine. That's going to be impacted significantly, too -- Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Well, exactly. And those mercenaries have had, if there are any Russian successes, they'd come at those, you know, the hands of the Wagner Group.

[15:05:06]

Nick, thank you very much.

Natasha Bertrand, of course the U.S. and the NATO allies have been really, really, you know, hoping that there would eventually be some internal challenge to Putin. And intelligence reports you're hearing about showed that there were some indications. So what do we know about that?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Christiane. So what we are told is that U.S. intelligence officials did see some signs that Prigozhin was perhaps planning to launch a major challenge against Russian military leadership. Now it was unclear what that challenge would look like, when it would happen. But we are told that U.S. officials briefed congressional leaders, known as the Gang of Eight, in recent days on these concerning movements that they were seeing by Prigozhin and Wagner, concerning military buildup and concerning movements near Russia.

Now again, it was unclear what actually might take place. And U.S. officials were pretty caught off guard by the speed with which this all unfolded late Friday night and into, of course, today. They convened emergency meetings, international trips were canceled by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the National Security adviser Jake Sullivan.

So they have been huddling all day here to try to figure out what comes next because while they may have been able to see some signs that Prigozhin was planning to challenge Russian military leadership in a significant way, they didn't know what form it would take and importantly they don't know yet where this goes from here.

So they are continuing to watch these events unfold, Christiane, and they are, you know, talking to other countries, allies and partners repeatedly really on an hourly basis, we are told, about what this all means for the stability of Russia and of course the war in Ukraine -- Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Exactly. And you have been reporting before that General Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had, you know, had changed his flight plans, so to speak because of this. I wonder what you're hearing about, you know, it was obviously or 24 hours in which presumably the NATO allies, the U.S. was hoping that, you know, this war would be resolved by maybe a fatal blow, I mean, in terms of power, to Putin. But they're going to have to go all the way back now, I guess, to bolstering the counteroffensive.

BERTRAND: Well, I think one of the questions was definitely whether Prigozhin's intention was to actually depose Vladimir Putin or whether he just wanted to make a point because of course he has been railing against Russia's military leadership including Shoigu and other Russian leaders for months and months now about what he believes is their incompetent execution of the war in Ukraine.

And so the question was always how far is Prigozhin willing to go? Does he have the support of Putin or is he willing to challenge Putin directly? That is something that U.S. officials just didn't know. And right now, of course, they are hopeful that this doesn't create the kind of instability in Russia that would perhaps compromise, for example, Russia's nuclear weapons. That is a big concern that U.S. officials have. It is a nuclear state. So what does this instability mean for the country as well as the broader region?

But, you know, Vladimir Putin obviously is not the friend of the United States. So on the other hand, of course, you know, there was a consideration here about whether he could be deposed and whether this could cause a big distraction, of course, from the war in Ukraine that could allow Ukraine to make a military breakthrough -- Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Can I just throw something out of left field? Not too left field, I hope. But you've been covering also, you know, the visit of Modi. We know, you know, Secretary of State Blinken has been going to China. It must give those two leaders pause about the longevity of the -- you know, of Vladimir Putin. And obviously the U.S. trying to peel, you know, India away from any kind of support and out of China's influence as well. What do you think?

BERTRAND: I think this is definitely part of the reason why U.S. officials were so surprised because it seemed like everything happened just so fast and with such little resistance by Russian troops. And that is one thing a European intelligence official told me that they would be watching really closely here is how little Russian troops actually oppose the occupation of Wagner forces, for example in Rostov-on-Don.

This is something that international leaders will be looking at to see, does Putin really have the support of his own military, of his population? Is this something that he can really control seeing as how Wagner Group just managed to march right in to Rostov? So obviously it's going to raise real questions on the international stage about his hold on power -- Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Natasha, thank you very much.

And joining us now is the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, John Herbst.

Ambassador, if Prigozhin was headed to Moscow, what do you think was going to happen when he got there?

AMB. JOHN E. HERBST, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Well, if he was going to Moscow, he was going to demonstrate he can enter the city and perhaps even seize control at some of the centers of power and most specifically the Ministry of Defense.

[15:10:08]

This is his spat has been with Shoigu and Gerasimov, first and foremost.

AMANPOUR: Yes. I don't know, you know, it's all -- it all seems to have deflated in terms of Prigozhin's march, and he's turned around. I don't -- none of us know how this is going to play out, but did you -- I mean, did you -- it is significant that Putin for the pretty much the first time, you know, quoted the collapse of the Russian empire in 1917. I mean, he made reference to the potential threat to the Russian state in a way that he hadn't done before during this war.

HERBST: Correct. It was very clear that he was spooked. And we can understand why he was spooked because he launched an unpopular war. Unpopular even among Russian elites. And he had a man who's considered something of a hero for being more successful on the battlefield in Ukraine sharply criticizing the reasons for going to war and demonstrating that he has his own independent power.

AMANPOUR: So you, Ambassador, to Ukraine, as we said, how do you think this is going to be interpreted there in terms of planning going ahead or is it just, you know, this was a 24-hour blip and we're back to the plan for the counteroffensive?

AMANPOUR: This is not a 24-hour blip. It's like Prigozhin is the person who looked behind the screen at the "Wizard of Oz" and saw the great and terrible Oz who's just this little frightened man. Putin has been diminished for all time by this affair. He declared what Prigozhin has done as treachery. Yet now there seems to be some sort of understanding when Prigozhin goes back to doing what he was doing. So Prigozhin has emerged as a second source of power in Russia, who cannot be controlled by the strongman of the Kremlin.

That's remarkable. And as for the impact on the battlefield, certainly this is demoralizing to Russian troops. But of course they've been demoralized by their terrible treatment and the bad generalship, and Ukraine's success with its counteroffensive last year. And, of course, when Wagner pulled out its forces after they took Bakhmut, although not taking it very well, and Ukrainians understand this.

So I suspect this will add a little bit of impetus to a counteroffensive which has not gone badly but has not gone as well as at least some people expected.

AMANPOUR: How do you now think? I mean, you're an ambassador. You're a diplomat. How do you think this is going to play out? I know, you know, you can't speculate about how the whole thing is going to end the war, but how do you see the next steps in view of what you've just been talking about, the impact of what just happened over the last 24 hours?

HERBST: Well, at -- one possibility is that the pause we're seeing as Prigozhin stopped his advance is that they'll be just kind of a standoff. But we very much still see two, quote-unquote, "contending parties." The second alternative is, again, you know, Prigozhin -- you know, he doesn't just turn -- he doesn't stop his movement. He goes back to the south of Russia. Maybe going back into Ukraine, maybe not. And he has demonstrated that he is an independent force who cannot be brought to heel. And again, what does that say about Putin's authority and his ability

to exact his will? And certainly, what does that say to Russian soldiers who are fighting in Ukraine?

AMANPOUR: Exactly. And what about Alexander Lukashenko? I don't know whether he was in power when you were ambassador there. But we know that he is essentially second fiddle to Putin. It's not an alliance of equals. What do you think was the engineering of that conversation? What did Putin say to Lukashenko and what would Lukashenko have said to Prigozhin to call this off?

HERBST: We don't know who initiated Lukashenko's activity. What we do know is that since the failed -- since the peculiar election in Belarus in August of 2020 which Lukashenko lost but nonetheless remained in power, he is becoming increasingly under Putin's thumb. And this may well have been one service that Lukashenko was willing to provide for Putin which will give him a measure -- only a measure -- of autonomy. We'll have to see.

But as for what Lukashenko told Prigozhin, I'm not certain. Maybe what he told Prigozhin was that, you know, OK. You've demonstrated that you're not going to be under the thumb of the Ministry of Defense which is what the Russian regulation said that the Wagner soldiers had to sign up for the Ministry of Defense. You can maintain your independent position and going back to doing what you're doing. And Prigozhin maybe felt that was enough.

It may well have been that deadline for his soldiers to sign up under the Ministry of Defense which is July 1 is what prompted Prigozhin to move.

[15:15:02]

AMANPOUR: Yes. Well, he does seem to indicate, frankly, in his statement in the latest audio that it was, you know, the demands to what he said disband the private Wagner Group, I guess, i.e., to put them under the military command. And -- yes. So that does seem to be what played into it. It's really an extraordinary state of affairs.

Ambassador John Herbst, thank you so much indeed.

HERBST: My pleasure. Thank you.

AMANPOUR: And straight ahead, new reporting from inside Ukraine. What President Zelenskyy claims Russia's President Putin is doing right now. We're live on the ground there, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. Moments ago, new reaction from the developments in Russia coming from President Zelenskyy of Ukraine.

CNN's senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman joining us live now from Zaporizhzhia.

So, Ben, what is Zelenskyy saying? BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Actually

Zelenskyy issued his nightly statement but that was before news came out that Prigozhin had decided to turn around and go home. What we did hear, of course, because keep in mind, the Ukrainians were transfixed while this crisis was unfolding in Russia.

[15:20:03]

And certainly President Zelenskyy was one of them. And basically, as I said, before the announcement came out of Prigozhin's standup, he did suggest that President Putin was hiding away. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINE (through translator): The man from the Kremlin is obviously very afraid and probably hiding somewhere, not showing himself. I am sure that he is no longer in Moscow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WEDEMAN: And, of course, now the Ukrainians are sort of back to where they were 24 hours ago pondering their next move in their counteroffensive. Now we have heard today that, according to the deputy defense minister of Ukraine that in the Bakhmut area they have made some progress, launching attacks from a variety of directions around that city which the Russians took in May. So it does appear that at least in that area they're making some progress.

Now, until now, the progress of this counteroffensive that started about two weeks ago has been relatively modest. They announced several days ago that they had managed to take back eight villages, 44 square miles. Now we went to some of those villages in the middle of the week. Pretty small. It is not a major gain in territory in the grand scheme of things.

But it's widely believed they have yet to commit the bulk of their forces to the counteroffensive. And in fact yesterday we were in the area, in an area south of here where it did appear the Ukrainians were concentrating troops and equipment and ammunition for perhaps a major push against Russian forces -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And then, Ben, I wonder, is Ukraine acknowledging that perhaps it's looking for any new openings or, you know, an advantage as a result of seeing this Russian power struggle, this infighting out in the open?

WEDEMAN: It's certainly indicated the depth of divisions within the Russian sort of elite writ large. We've been well aware of the differences between Prigozhin and his Wagner Group on the one hand and the leadership of the Defense Ministry on the other. Sort of the way it happened within the last 24 hours or so was more rapid and dramatic than anybody could have expected. So I think they are hoping that this is going to have -- these divisions are going to have a ripple effect on the frontlines.

That some of the uncertainty, the lack of clarity about the situation in Moscow is going to have an effect on among the troops. But at this point, it's really hard to say. Now we've spoken with troops on the frontline and they said that despite all of the news coming out of Moscow and Rostov-on-Don, with the control by Prigozhin of basically the main command and control center of the Russian army, for Russian forces in southern Ukraine, despite all of that, Russian troops were still resisting Ukrainian advances.

There didn't seem to be any chaos or disorder among the frontline Russian forces. So we're going to have to see if this is just a temporary 24-hour freak incident or is this going to have long-term effects on the ability of Russian forces to resist this Ukrainian counteroffensive -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Right. We shall see indeed. Ben Wedeman, thank you so much.

U.S. President Biden and other top U.S. officials are monitoring the situation closely this afternoon. Let's bring in Priscilla Alvarez, live from the White House.

Priscilla, what are you learning about the approach the White House is taking?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I asked the White House moments ago whether there are any changes or updates now that we know that the Wagner chief has said that his forces are turning around and the statement I got is that they are continuing to monitor the situation. That has been the line from the White House over the last several hours.

Now we know that this morning President Biden spoke with the leaders of France, Germany, and the U.K. And in a readout from the White House, they said, quote, "The leaders discussed the situation in Russia. They also affirm their unwavering support for Ukraine.

Now President Biden has gone to Camp David, the presidential retreat, where he has joined with National Security adviser Jake Sullivan, which indicates to us that this is a fast-developing situation and one that he will be consistently briefed on. But the White House has been cautious about how much they weigh in here as they continue to wrap their arms around this situation.

Now, we should note that as early as January, American officials had noticed that there was a power struggle between the mercenary Wagner Group and the Russian government.

[15:25:08]

And officials believed that there would be mounting tensions in the months to come. And we're seeing that play out now, though it did play out perhaps more quickly than anticipated. But of course the key strategy here for the White House is to stay in close touch with partners and allies, not only President Biden but also his top officials including Secretary of State Anthony Blinken who spoke with G-7 allies and E.U. counterparts earlier today and has been in touched with them. So President Biden and Vice President Harris being continually briefed

throughout the day on the evolving situation including now with the latest news. And so we'll wait to hear if we get more updates in the hours to come -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Bring it us to when you do. Thank you so much, Priscilla Alvarez, there at the White House.

All right. Much more of our continuing coverage on these major developments in Russia. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:30:11]

WHITFIELD: Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin is known as Putin's chef and has a long history with Russia's president. Rising to prominence by winning lucrative contracts with the Kremlin.

CNN's senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): He's long been a well-known mercenary leader around the world. Now, Yevgeny Prigozhin is a wanted man in Russia as well. His often merciless group of fighters is now pitted against the Russian military leadership, and Prigozhin is suddenly Moscow's public enemy number one.

Vladimir Putin calling for Prigozhin's group to lay down their arms.

PRES. VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIA (through translator): All those who deliberately chose the path of treachery, who prepared an armed mutiny, who chose the path of blackmail and terrorist methods, will face inevitable punishment, and will answer both to the law and to our people.

PLEITGEN: He may now be something of a nemesis to Vladimir Putin, but it was his decades long relationship with the Russian president that allowed Prigozhin to establish his own militia, the Wagner Group.

Wagner served as a private army doing controversial jobs that often not even Russia's military could do. Prigozhin, a former prisoner himself and self-styled hard man from Saint Petersburg, used Wagner to operate around the world. CNN has tracked Wagner mercenaries to the Central African Republic, Sudan, Libya, Mozambique, Ukraine, and to Syria. Along the way, Prigozhin enriched himself.

Rights groups have accused Wagner of horrific violence, like this, Wagner fighters allegedly smashing the feet and hands of a Syrian prisoner with a sledgehammer in 2017. The man reportedly died after his ordeal. The images are incredibly disturbing, like so many others attributed to his group.

For many years, Prigozhin denied the existence of Wagner, its work best done in secret. A master of mythmaking, it was Prigozhin and Wagner who set up the notorious Russian troll farm used to spread disinformation around the 2016 U.S. presidential election. But when his fighters took to the battlefield in eastern Ukraine and began winning battles, Prigozhin seemed to want the spotlight.

PRIGOZHIN (through translator): The Bakhmut operation began on October 8th, 2022, in order to give the battered Russian army an opportunity to recover. Our guys stormed this city for 224 days. There were only Wagner private forces here.

PLEITGEN: His tactics included flinging poorly armed and poorly trained troops into the so-called meatgrinder of war in Ukraine's east, suffering a shocking number of casualties in an attempt to overwhelm defenses.

Prigozhin rubbed his victories in the face of Russia's flailing Defense Department, venting his fury at the haphazardness and ill- planning of Russia's illegal invasion, and chastising the Russian top brass, mocking Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

PRIGOZHIN (through translator): You think you are the masters of this life? You think you can dispose of their lives? You think because you have warehouses full of ammunition, that you have that right?

PLEITGEN: Now, the Kremlin's secret weapon may be its biggest threat.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WHITFIELD: Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much for that report.

Right now global leaders are reacting to the escalating situation in Russia. We'll bring you that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:37:47]

AMANPOUR: Back to our breaking news. Just hours after vowing to march on Moscow and challenged the Kremlin's military leaders, perhaps even Putin himself, the head of Russia's mercenary group now says that his forces are standing down and no longer on that road to Moscow.

This new video into CNN shows the Wagner forces apparently being cheered by residents of a Russian town they had recently taken control of. The Russian president Vladimir Putin had vowed to punish the armed rebellion led by the mercenary group.

So with me now is Masha Gessen, a Russian American journalist and a staff writer for "The New Yorker." Also author of several books, of course, on Russia and its leader including "The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin."

So, Masha, regardless of whether or not, you know, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, has truly decided to stop his march or whatever happened to change this, how in your mind is this crisis impact Putin and his, you know, iron grip on Russia? MASHA GESSEN, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Well, Putin is in a very

strange position now. In order to negotiate with Prigozhin, he had to enter a space where he has two completely contradictory forces pushing down on him. On the one hand, he has to appease Prigozhin, give him something. Prigozhin wanted basically to, if not in job title then in spirit, to take charge of the war effort because he thinks that the defense minister is incompetent and out of his depth. Not unreasonable.

So on the one hand, Putin has probably promised Prigozhin not just immunity from prosecution, the cases against him have already been dropped, but also probably more autonomy and more say so in the world. On the other hand, Putin needs to prevent something like this from happening again. So he needs to crack down on Prigozhin, on Prigozhin supporters and Prigozhin's potential supporters.

These are things that are in extreme contradiction. He's going to have to make choices about them. Most likely he will choose an extreme crackdown.

[15:40:04]

AMANPOUR: And what does that look like? Because, I mean, I don't know whether you notice it or whether I did because I don't know any better, but I feel that, you know, Putin had never in this whole war said anything like that this one action was about as close to, you know, bringing down the Russian state as what happened in the uprising of 1917.

GESSEN: Well, you know what? This may be the first true thing that Putin has said in 23 years. This is, in fact, as close as anything has come to threatening the Russian empire. Right? As we knew it in 1917 and as we know it now. A crackdown looks very much like the crackdown on Belarus. Not coincidentally Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, the so-called president of Belarus, negotiated whatever they negotiated with Prigozhin for now.

It means mass arrests. It probably means shutting Russia off from the World Wide Web or at least blocking widely accessible instruments of communication such as YouTube and Telegram. It really means another giant step forward to Soviet-style totalitarianism.

AMANPOUR: Well, given that, you heard reports from Russia probably all day today that tickets out of Moscow, flights out of Moscow were fully booked. That people were trying to leave in any which way they could, and from other areas of Russia as well. So how do you assess the support or not that Putin still has? I mean, by and large, whatever the resistance internally to the war if it exists is the silent either minority or majority. How do you assess what is happening inside Moscow?

GESSEN: Well, it's very hard to tell why people are leaving, right? I don't think they can tell themselves fully why they're leaving. Some people are leaving because they fear the iron curtain will fall. Some people are leaving because they fear violence. You know, we saw not only in Moscow but in Rostov, the place -- the large southern city that Prigozhin's forces briefly took control of earlier today.

We saw people lining up at train stations, seems really reminiscent of what we saw at train stations in Ukraine a year and a half ago as people were fleeing violence or potential violence. People were fleeing what looked like civil war. Right? So that doesn't tell us very much about how people feel about Putin. In fact, nothing does. Including people themselves. In totalitarianism, there is no such thing as public opinion because there is no public and there's no opinion.

What has happened, however, is that Prigozhin has for the first time in many, many years created a sense that there is plurality of political actors in Russia. It's not just Putin. It's not a monolith. In sort of real terms, he has challenged his monopoly on power and his monopoly on force. But in political terms, he has challenged his monopoly on the narrative, his monopoly on politics. He has created something that resembles public space if only for 24 hours.

This is huge, right. This is hugely destabilizing for Putin's regime.

AMANPOUR: So I guess how do you think Putin will spin this power struggle? And related to that, one of his key allies, Sergei Markov, former MP, you know, member of Putin's party, told me earlier that, you know, Putin had to make this deal or, you know, turn around from Prigozhin because he just couldn't afford yet another front against him. You know, certainly not an internal front.

GESSEN: Right. So that's very interesting, right, that Putin's allies have been -- some of them have tried to sort of speak out of the both sides of their mouths like Markov. A lot of them, most of them have to stay silent because they don't know what to say in this situation. They're not getting clear narratives from the Kremlin. We don't know how he's going to spin this. He's called Prigozhin a traitor.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the other sort of private army commander in Putin's service, has called this a knife in Putin's back or a knife in somebody's back. We assume the somebody is Putin. So it's going to be spun as an act of betrayal. But mostly, you know, totalitarian propaganda doesn't rest on clear narratives. It rests on creating a chaotic information space. A sense of dread. A sense of being under siege.

In this sense, Prigozhin's insurgency isn't necessarily destructive to the propaganda machine, right?

AMANPOUR: Yes.

[15:45:03]

GESSEN: It's -- a different question is what does this do to Putin's war effort in Ukraine?

AMANPOUR: Right.

GESSEN: If Prigozhin is able to significantly weaken it, that in turn can have an impact on what happens to the propaganda machine. AMANPOUR: Indeed. Masha Gessen, thank you very much.

And earlier today I spoke with Nina Khrushcheva, she's professor of international affairs at the New School as well as the great granddaughter of the former Soviet premier Nikita Khruschev. She raised serious questions about Prigozhin's future after raising such a public challenge to Putin, and not just him, but also to the leaders of Russia's military.

Here is some of what she told me when she joined me from Moscow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NINA KHRUSHCHEVA, PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, THE NEW SCHOOL: 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 take betrayal. And so that probably is something that they would have -- all will play out later on.

I just spoke to a variety of people around me in the bulling and there is a sigh of relief. And one older woman said, well, I'm sure -- I wasn't sure it was going to 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 if it is very bad for Putin because it does show how this whole apparatus is basically being very, very thinly still stick together and almost falling part.

But I would also imagine it might strengthen Putin's hand a little bit because exactly that. I mean, 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 is doing with all his words and all his actions.

AMANPOUR: So just go back a little bit in history and see if it's relevant at all to what is happening in the Kremlin right now. You said that, you know, when a leader is challenged in this way, even though he gets out of it and, you know, 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 sort of 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, there is not a mystery that the things are going badly. There is not a mystery that he's not as strong as he appears to be assessed 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 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 are close to Putin who was able -- were able to take advantage of. (END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: That was Nina Khrushchev joining me from Moscow, and we will be back in just a moment after a break.

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[15:52:58]

WHITFIELD: All right. Welcome back. The White House is closely watching this developing power struggle in Russia today.

Let's bring in CNN's Priscilla Alvarez at the White House.

So what are you hearing about their approach?

ALVAREZ: Well, they're watching closely as this unfolds on the ground. President Biden is being briefed regularly. He just arrived at Camp David, his presidential retreat, where he is with National Security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Now Sullivan was supposed to be on a trip in Europe but he canceled those plans given the situation. And he is now briefing the president. Now earlier today we also learned from the White House that President Biden spoke with the leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The three of them have been closely aligned when it comes to the war in Ukraine and discussed the evolving situation in Russia today.

Now, we know that as of early January, U.S. officials had been monitoring this internal struggle between the mercenary Wagner Group and the Russian government. Now officials believe that these tensions would mount, though it perhaps happened more quickly than they anticipated, and it is what we are seeing unfold now.

And so the key part of the strategy for the White House has been being in regular contact with allies and partners. It's not just President Biden either, his top officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Austin have been talking to countries. Blinken in particular, we know from the State Department spoke with GS-7 allies and E.U. counterparts earlier this morning.

So this is a top priority for this White House as they monitor the situation on the ground and what could be ramifications for the war this Ukraine. Now I asked the White House only moments ago whether there was any updates given the latest news that the mercenaries are turning around. And they continue to tell me that they are monitoring the situation.

So that's really the line that we're going to be hearing from the White House at least for now because officials are cautious about what they say and what they weigh in, just given the fact that they're still wrapping their arms around this. And so President Biden as far as we know will be continuing to be briefed by his advisers throughout the day today -- Fred.

[15:55:05]

WHITFIELD: All right, Priscilla Alvarez, at the White House, thank you so much.

All right. And thank you for joining us today. I'm Fredricka Whitfield joined by CNN's chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour. CNN's special coverage of the stunning developments in Russia continuing right after this.

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