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Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) Is Interviewed About Wagner Chief Halts Mercenaries' March To Moscow; WH Continues "To Monitor The Situation" After Wagner Chief Says He Turned His Forces Around.Aired 10-11p ET

Aired June 24, 2023 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:10]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: You're back live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington. Good evening. It's 10:00 PM here in Washington, but it's 5:00 AM in Moscow. In a new day of questions and uncertainty lies ahead for Russia. Russian mercenaries suddenly abandoned their insurrection and possible coup attempt on President Vladimir Putin. In a surprisingly quick advance on Moscow, the Wagner Group claimed to seize control of an important Russian military facility in the city of Rostov-on-Don.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA (voice-over): The leader of the Wagner Group says they capture the facility, a key operations base for Russia's war on Ukraine, without firing a single shot. Those cheers you just heard are local, showing their support. The head of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, also claimed to seize a military facility in another city about halfway to Moscow. That's when Prigozhin says he ordered his mercenaries to suddenly turn around.

This is video of them pulling out of one town. And here's Prigozhin receiving a hero's farewell as he leaves. He says he struck a deal to end the advance on Moscow to avoid a bloody conflict.

YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN, FOUNDER, WAGNER GROUP (through translation): 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)

ACOSTA: We're following all the latest developments. Let's begin with CNN International diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson. Nic, help us make sense of this extraordinary day in Russia. I mean, that may be understating things, and what it might mean in the days ahead? I mean, those cheers we just played, Nic, those were for Wagner, not Vladimir Putin. What a wild day.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: What a wild day from the beginning to the end. Look, when I heard those cheers, I asked myself, are those people cheering for Prigozhin because they think he's great? Or are they cheering Prigozhin because he left their town and avoided a massive potential, massive bloodshed if the Russian military had actually gone in there hard to get him? But it does seem, on the face -- from a face of what we're seeing, that this is support for Prigozhin, and perhaps this is what Putin was worried about.

But he does seem to be out of touch. The conventional wisdom has been that Putin is the guy that can pull all the strings, that has good strategic oversight. But this was a situation he let get out of control, and it's not clear how much control he still has. Is his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, still in place because Prigozhin demanded that he be forced out? That Prigozhin's troops didn't have to sign up and become part of Russia's main forces under Sergei Shoigu?

Where's Prigozhin right now? Is he in Belarus? What's going to happen to him when he gets to Belarus? Is he going to be under house arrest? Is he going to be forced not to speak on TV, not to criticize Putin? None of this is clear. But at the end of the day, that view and that understanding and the conventional wisdom that Putin was the center of all power that has evaporated in this extraordinary day.

ACOSTA: Right. The Kremlin says that this case against Prigozhin is going to be dropped, and that Prigozhin will be allowed to go to Belarus. Nic, I mean, I just have to ask you. It seems odd to me that Vladimir Putin, knowing everything that we've known about Vladimir Putin for the last 23 years that he's been in power, would just allow Prigozhin to head off to Belarus and that would be that. I can't imagine that is the end of the story.

ROBERTSON: It doesn't add up. It doesn't pass the basic sniff test. Putin likes loyalty. He hates people who are disloyal. And by his own admission today, Prigozhin and Putin was forced into this position by Prigozhin's actions. Prigozhin's actions, according to Putin, were treasonous. That's the ultimate failure of the loyalty test.

So, how can Prigozhin begin to believe is safe in Belarus? How did Lukashenko, a wheat leader propped up by Putin, become the guy to bail Putin out of this potential problem? It doesn't pass the basic Smith test, Jim.

ACOSTA: Right. And let's talk about what might be happening next for Prigozhin in Belarus. We simply have no visibility on that. And the Kremlin, if I'm not mistaken, earlier this evening was essentially saying, we don't really have a firm handle on Prigozhin's whereabouts. And there was something cryptic that Prigozhin said at the end of that audio message where he said, this is all happening according to the plan. According to what plan? I don't know what that means either. This is all sounding like a Russian spy novel.

[22:05:13]

ROBERTSON: Because the best assessment has been that Prigozhin kind of even went off his own script and found himself having to back down from a situation where he wasn't going to win. In what world can a -- or Russia can a military force that's taking on the government, taking on the army, be allowed to drive half the way to Moscow? I mean, how come they weren't stopped? We saw a couple of situations on the main highway where there were a couple of trucks parked across the highway that were supposed to potentially block Prigozhin's forces. They'd just been forced out of the way. What's bizarre in all of this is that the conventional wisdom in Russia is that the Russian leader, Putin, is respected by the people of Russia, and they tolerate whatever he does because he is powerful, he controls the situation and he keeps them safe.

That's been rewritten today. As part of that rewrite, where does Prigozhin stand? What is he able to mount another angry aggression against the defense minister, against the defense minister's deputy, Gerasimov.

ACOSTA: Right.

ROBERTSON: Again, we don't know the details. It doesn't make sense.

ACOSTA: No. And the scenes are almost from something that you would see out of a regime change, except there was no regime change. It's a very puzzling situation. Nic Robertson, thank you. I know it's been a very long night for you and early morning as well. We appreciate it. Thanks so much.

The actions of Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenaries have been the biggest threat to Vladimir Putin's grip on power in two decades. So what does this mean for Putin and Russia going forward? I'm joined now by retired Brigadier General Peter Zwack, a former US Defense Attache to Russia, and Beth Sanner, former Deputy Director of National Intelligence and CNN National Security Analyst.

General, to you first. It's been a little while since you and I have spoken. We used to speak on a regular basis about what's been going on in Ukraine. But the common denominator during all of those conversations, and I guess what we're talking about tonight is Vladimir Putin and what is going on with Vladimir Putin

Not that long ago, such naked aggression against Moscow would have just been inconceivable. But in the past few weeks, we've seen drone attacks on the Kremlin. People still are scratching their heads over that one. And then what we saw take place today. And then there are people cheering in the streets for somebody like Prigozhin. It just seems you just would never expect to ever see in Putin's Russia.

PETER ZWACK, FORMER US DEFENSE ATTACHE TO RUSSIA: Jim, thank you for having me back. Two things, there are two existential fights that are going on in this overall Russia Ukraine war. One is the viability, the survival, the existence of a free-minded Ukrainian state of its own sovereignty. And that looks like it's going to happen. The other existential fight that's going on or has been going on is inside the Kremlin and the viability of the Putin regime. Which today, I think, it may take some time, has suffered a mortal blow.

In the most unlikely of ways, though, Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner, he's been talking and speaking. I don't think anybody could have imagined that this would happen. What he has done is he has divided the Russians. He's got them squabbling publicly. If you're a Russian citizen, you say what the heck is going on with our leadership or a soldier, let alone, where you see the Wagner Group is fighting with the military. No, this may take time, but this, I believe, is a mortal blow to Putin and his regime.

ACOSTA: Beth, is that how you see it? I mean, what does Putin do now? Does he get desperate or does he sort of sit back and assess the scene now that he has, I guess, supposedly gotten Prigozhin out of the way and off to Belarus? Although we should underline what were reporting earlier this evening. Even the Kremlin was saying, well, we don't exactly know where he is right now, which is that is puzzling, as one of the many puzzling things tonight, Beth.

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. I mean, it's been an incredible day. There's no doubt about that. I mean, I think where the Kremlin is right now, if you look at the statement by Dmitry Peskov, and he makes this statement about this is all wrapped up in a bow, we're done. And he's asked, you know, well, is Putin going to talk again? And Peskov says, no. He's not going to make any more comments.

[22:10:07]

So this says to me, you know, Putin is almost like la-la-la, never mind, trying to put this genie back in the bottle. And Prigozhin's mess is pretty big to stuff back in that bottle, and I don't think that's possible. So we've seen a lot of myths shattered over the last 48 hours, and there is no way to put it back together again.

I think, though, really, this could take quite some time. And I think that, as Peter said, it's not the end of the story but we also don't know how long this book is.

ACOSTA: And, General Zwack, what do the events of the past 24 hours say about the Russian military itself and how the Wagner Group forces were able to have this march to Moscow, as Prigozhin was calling it. And make it within a couple of hundred kilometers of the Russian capital? That is just wild. That's just an extraordinary thing.

ZWACK: And the word is wild. It's extraordinary. The fact that we've heard about the Wagners leaving Bakhmut and back farther into Eastern Ukraine, and then all of a sudden they make their move. They take Rostov, which is a million per significant regional capital, where the headquarters of the Russian Southern Military District, which directs the fighting mostly in the south and Crimea, and the Black Sea. And then turns around with this force and presses to Voronezh, halfway to Moscow, an important regional capital again, that is full of logistics. And you're getting at what you just saw, what we all saw.

These Russians -- they're Russians, however rough (inaudible) they are. And they were being the citizens in Rostov and Voronezh, (inaudible). They were kind of bemused. Others were completely open, and others treated these Von Reich (ph) as rock stars, extraordinary. And the narrative is getting out now to the mainstream population again, that this invasion of Ukraine was wrong, it was a lie, and all of this is spilling out now into the Russian heartland.

And I think in this aspect, the information that Russia's Putin's bodyguard of lies is collapsing as we watch.

ACOSTA: And, Beth, the other thing that was extraordinary about this day is Prigozhin was poking holes in the Russian propaganda-fueled narrative as to why they were in Ukraine. I mean, he was saying that the oligarchs and the military leaders were just cashing in on the bloodshed in Ukraine. And of course, he's been very critical of military and defense officials in Moscow for some time now, and then he does this.

And as General Zwack was just saying a few moments ago, to have these scenes of people cheering in the streets, that to me is remarkable in that those images were even allowed out of the country and that people were in the streets able to do this sort of thing. I mean, this is -- you don't want to overstate things but that also suggests, all of those things suggest that Putin's grip is slipping.

SANNER: Yes, and potentially no. It depends, right? Rostov-on-Don still had Prigozhin controlling that city. People put masks over their face in some circumstances when they were doing that. We may see, actually, Putin now, what will be his reaction. We could very well see Putin doubling down on the repression in Russia as a reaction to this. I think we should also expect whatever he can bring to bear in Ukraine to double down there and show that he is in control. Because he has been humiliated, he has been shown to be not in control. And so, what does a strong person do? He's going to try to reassert that.

So, again, I don't know how long that lasts or what that looks like, but I think that -- I think that Putin will not just stand there and allow all of this to flourish and blossom.

[22:15:02]

ACOSTA: That's an important point. To that point, General Zwack, does that mean that Putin has to focus on solidifying things in Russia at the expense of conducting what he's doing in Ukraine? And might there be an opportunity here for the Ukrainians?

ZWACK: Yes. This is the word isn't -- this is bigger than a distraction. This is a deadly serious to the internals and the narrative of Russia, and what it is. And yes, absolutely. The mental bandwidth of the leaders in the Kremlin and elsewhere, let alone the military, that's having to deal with Prigozhin and the fallout and an ugly war that is now increasingly being reinforced to the public. Yes.

Now, imagine you are a mid level Russian officer and you're completely tuned in all this. What's going on in Moscow? What's going on in my country? And the young Russian on the line, oh, by the way, Wagner Group, another about 40,000, nobody knows, is out. They're still dealing with a fight with a Ukrainian, with the Ukrainians who've got to be absolutely heartened by this and going to come at them even harder. Where's the tipping point?

It's been a tough fight, but where's the morality and the will -- morale and the will to fight among the Russians with all this negative messaging? So, there is a lot going on. I think the Ukrainians are clever and a half and they are looking for that scene. And we'll capitalize it probably with a message to a lot of the Russian rank and file. Go home, surrender, put up your arms. We're coming. And we're going to come through and fight. You don't have to do this, Russians.

So this is, I think, a really serious fight for the Russian rank and file, who for anything. The only thing they're fighting for right now in Ukraine is for their own lives, because they don't believe in their cause or the narrative anymore, if they ever give.

ACOSTA: Yes. it could be a huge turning point indeed. General Peter Zwack, Beth Sanner, thank you very much. I know it's a late night. We really appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Coming up, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Vladimir Putin is very afraid, his words, very afraid. History tells us the Russian leader does not react well to being challenged, so what does this insurrection mean for Putin's future? We'll tackle that ahead. You're live in the CNN Newsroom.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: No question about it. We all observed a stunning course of events in Russia today. US Intelligence officials had picked up on clues that Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was planning to move against Russia's military. But no one was prepared for the speed at which those events unfolded and then ultimately fizzled.

So what happens next? Let's discuss. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld writes about the Russian economy and Senior Associate Dean at Yale University School of Management. Jeffrey, welcome. Appreciate your time.

This afternoon, you tweeted, "Don't be fooled by Prigozhin-Putin deal. This is the start of Putin's final downfall, and the emperor is now naked." And then you linked to a piece you wrote in foreign policy, along with some other Putin critics. Tell me why you think Putin's armor has been pierced.

JEFFREY SONNENFELD, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, DEAN AT YALE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT: Well, thanks a lot, Jim. I should mention, those other Putin critics that you mentioned, of course, are the renowned Bill Browder, who's been one of the longest standing Putin critics and putting his money behind his mouth on this quite courageously, as well as Jon Huntsman, a former ambassador to Russia. These are great experts, and my expertise is on leadership.

And what we see here is this is a leader who has been in power, has fortified himself by fear, by coercion, by a sense of structure and intel, all that's broken down. He's caught by surprises. Intel is not there. He doesn't have the fear. He doesn't have the coercion. It's a perfect case study of contrasting leadership styles.

When you look at Volodymyr Zelenskyy, by contrast, he rules by the affection of his people, by the sense of trust in the people, by an embedded sense of legitimacy, doesn't fear this kind of an insurrection. It's extraordinary. What that means now is he's got threats. This is now back to Putin threats inside and outside. And on the outside. It's all over the map, everywhere from China to Chechnya, everywhere from Beijing to Belarus. He's got allies that are now worried about how much they can anchor on him.

Of course, messaging to Ukraine, messaging elsewhere on the outside, but inside, it's total chaos. It's roving warlords. It's not just Wagner Group. There are several other groups out there. Some of them are more like neighborhood bullies, but still you see a breakdown of civil society, which is unparalleled.

ACOSTA: And does this make Putin more dangerous, do you think?

SONNENFELD: Well, the thing that's really dangerous that I've noticed today, and maybe I shouldn't say now, but the great fear of the late Ash Carter, the former Secretary of Defense, we had when we saw breakdowns in Russia before, or at least the old Soviet Union is the loose nukes danger, is who's in charge of these strategic weapons. That's a primary concern. And I don't want to be alarmist on that, but in a strange way that many in the US government almost like a unified command for Russia, so we don't have worry about that. But this is a great situation, obviously, for Ukraine to take advantage of the chaos and the confusion, and the lack of a solidarity, that's tremendous.

And we also see that there's an eroding power base in Belarus where there was a deposed president put in prison, another one, his wife, who had properly taken over.

ACOSTA: Right.

SONNENFELD: And we see that Lukashenko, who's there, is not necessarily seen as illegitimate. And that's why Putin had to go to somebody in the outside, not his own government, to protect him. He couldn't even save himself with his own forces. His own forces melted and gave up this Rostov-on-Don with no resistance. And people in the town cheered. The people who rebelled? We've never anybody tell Putin --

[22:25:01]

ACOSTA: It's remarkable. It's remarkable to see those.

SONNENFELD: It's remarkable.

ACOSTA: And I was going to say, Prigozhin is hardly a character worth admiring. I mean, he is a bloody butcher himself. And so, why do you think he was able to make such a strong stand? Did he just essentially catch Putin with his pants down it?

SONNENFELD: Well, obviously, it's been the incompetence of his version of his Secretary of Defense, in his version of a commander in chief of Austin and Milley. And that's -- that they have -- their campaign has failed so much. These are the people who said they would take Kyiv in three days. And here we are a year-and-a-half later in their losing ground, not winning ground, and the massive casualties.

But you're right, Prigozhin is hardly a sympathetic heroic figure, not to be confused with (inaudible) or Navalny, let alone the late Boris Nemtsov, killed in prison. Those people had the affection of the people and they were noble, heroic types. Prigozhin is a butcher and a bully. What he did, of course, in Aleppo, in Syria, he bombed a quarter of a million civilians. And his atrocities throughout Africa, this is one vicious guy. He orders the sledgehammering of people who betray him. So this is not a nice guy.

The old bit about the enemy of the enemy is our friend. Well, in this case, I don't think anybody's going to call the Prigozhin a friend. But we do see is he had the courage to say that this is a war. This is a war that we're failing at. This is -- we being Russia. And this is a war that should never perhaps have happened. And that message is getting out to the Russian people in ways they never have before, with perhaps only 4% of Russians downloading a VPN to get the news. And any honest press that hasn't somehow lost their balance on a window sill or been shut down. They haven't been picking it up with VPN.

But now it's getting through because of the Telegraph messaging that he's so effective at -- the Telegram, rather, in getting the social media out, as you talked about previously with General Zwack is that this -- Putin is in very bad shape. We don't know how the Wagner group can retreat. This is 25,000 heavily armed people possibly still in control of the command center on the war on Ukraine.

ACOSTA: Yes. And that is why there are a lot of folks asking the question whether what we saw today is the end of this, and it may very well not be. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, thank you so much. All the time we have we'll definitely have you back and continue this conversation, but check out Jeffrey's piece-

SONNERFELD: Thanks for your great coverage.

ACOSTA: Thank you very much. We appreciate it. All right.

And coming up, I'll be joined by a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to discuss what's happening right now in Russia and how will Congress respond. That's another key question here in Washington. That's ahead. You're live in the CNN Newsroom.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:31:42]

ACOSTA: Despite the events of the last day, officials say the U.S. has not seen a change to Russia's nuclear posture. CNN's Kylie Atwood joins me now with this reporting. Kylie, this is important reporting, and it's a sign that there does remain some stability in Russia, at least when it comes to nuclear weapons, which is always a huge concern here in the nation's capital.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: On that front, yes. And it's really significant because U.S. officials have long watched what President Putin might do as the war in Ukraine has continued on, because he has engaged in nuclear saber rattling throughout the course of the war. And the concern has been that any escalation on the battlefield where he feels cornered or Putin feels threatened, he might actually engage in the use of those nuclear weapons to demonstrate some, you know, show of power. And, of course, the situation unfolding now has nothing to do with Ukrainian aggressions towards Russia, has to do with internal divisions within Russia's fighting force. But it is a situation where President Putin is facing pressure, is facing, you know, a situation where he could feel threatened, of course. And so U.S. officials continue to watch this space closely, but as we reported right now, no changes to Russia's nuclear posture at the moment.

We should note that earlier this month, Putin did say that he moved tactical nuclear weapons into Belarus. So that is significant, also a space in this realm that U.S. officials continue to watch incredibly closely. The State Department spokesperson confirming that there's been no change in Russia's nuclear posture and also saying, you know, that the U.S. has not made any changes to its conventional nuclear force posture. Jim?

ACOSTA: All right, Kylie Atwood, thank you very much for that very important reporting. We appreciate it.

With the Kremlin choosing against criminal charges for Prigozhin, at least for now, there is speculation of other consequences for the leader of the Wagner military group. Our next guest has had some choice words for the Russian president. Just last year, he slammed Putin amid talks of a potential Ukrainian peace deal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): Putin, when they're at the peace talks table, he's bombing hospitals. I mean, good grief. He's a dirt bag. And that's on dirt bags. That's all they're going to do, is do those kind of things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Here with us to discuss all this, Tennessee Republican and House Foreign Affairs Committee member, Tim Burchett. Congressman, I guess what's your reaction to this wild day in Russia?

BURCHETT: Wild is right, Jim. Thank you for having me on. I guess Putin's learning. If you can't trust a bloodthirsty mercenary, who in the world can you trust? You know, he -- this guy is like his protege. He gets -- I mean it was reminiscent a little bit of Hitler coming in on mother Russia getting so close to Moscow. And then, of course, I guess they hit his price and he turned around and hightailed it to Belarus.

But, you know, you have to wonder, though, he got so close without any military raising a hand at all, Jim. And so that tells me definitely one or two things, either that they -- the Russians said, in fact, keep away from this guy, or they were afraid to take him on, because if you saw any of the pictures of him in some of the towns, people were getting selfies with him. He was getting the rock star treatment.

[22:35:17]

So it's very interesting. And I would warn people that are anxious to see Putin dethroned if this guy were to take over. He is a bloodthirsty SOB man. He's another no count. And it's very reminiscent to me during the Second World War, I've studied a little bit of the history there. My father fought in it. My mama flew an airplane, but -- during it. But Hitler, they could have -- Churchill could have taken him out towards the end, but they figured he was doing such a terrible job, why take him out, leave him in there.

And, you know, because we might -- the devil we don't know is what we're worried about. And so there's a lot of moving parts here. I mean, it is a crazy interesting day, though.

ACOSTA: And I suppose as a member of the committee that you're on, that you're going to want the Foreign Affairs Committee, and I suppose some of your colleagues are going to want to have this as well, have some briefings on where Putin's standing is right now. And what does a post Putin Russia look like? Does anybody in Washington, as far as you can tell, have any sense as to what the future holds if there is no Putin in charge in Russia?

BURCHETT: And I caution my colleagues because, you know, military intelligence to me is a whole lot like congressional ethics. I'm not sure if it exists. They predicted even with our incredible investment that in fact, Putin would just roll over Ukraine. You remember the talks? It was in two weeks. They had no idea that the Ukrainian people would rally around Zelenskyy and their country and defend their homelands.

So, you know, it's a tossup anyway. I think it's a whole lot like the weather in Washington with Russia in this case, because everybody just sticks their head out the wind and says, well, yes, in fact, it's raining. And they'll predict rain. And that's pretty much what the intelligence community has been doing on this war.

ACOSTA: And do you think Putin hits back harder at Ukraine? What should the Biden administration be thinking about? What should members of Congress be thinking about? Should Ukraine try to take advantage of this opportunity? Is now the time for Ukraine to maybe push forward even more aggressively, if that's even possible, for the U.S. to send even more weapons to Ukraine to take advantage of this moment?

BURCHETT: Yes. You would think they're weakened, but Prigozhin is apparently, his Wagner group, his mercenaries, the majority of them are heading back or still over there. So, you know, I don't know that it weakens the military. I think morale wise, it sure as heck would. But as you've reported many times, what do the Russian people know and what do their troops know? What are they being told? They don't have the access to the media. They can't turn on cable T.V. and watch CNN like we can and find out what the heck is going on.

So it's kind of a tossup, really. You know, it's a brutal war and it's wearing them down, I suspect. And I don't see monetarily how they can withstand too much more of this just because it's gone on so long. It has to be stretching their finances very thin. And I suspect and that hurts back home. And you saw, you know, when they were rolling in that just -- I thought it was a lackluster at best attempt of the folks trying to stop Prigozhin from coming in and the Wagner group. So who knows?

ACOSTA: Let me ask you this. Back in April, you and other conservative lawmakers sent a letter to President Biden saying you'd no longer support, quote, unrestrained American aid to Ukraine. Do you want to reconsider that?

BURCHETT: I don't. Personally, I still think it's not our war. It's Europe's war. I still think Putin is a dirtbag, and I wish he'd be deposed, and I wish somebody had a bigger heart for Russia and their people and the Ukrainians would take over. But I still think it's a bad idea for us to be in that war. It has shades of Vietnam, and we're just ramping this thing up.

ACOSTA: Don't you want to see the Russians defeated? I mean --

BURCHETT: Absolutely.

ACOSTA: Right now, we've been trying to ramp that up.

BURCHETT: But I don't know that we're going to do that. I think what we're going to do is fatten the war machine, fatten missile stocks, members of Congress, and it just goes down the line. And I've stated this many times, it's not normal for a human being to make a 70 percent return on average. And you have -- and I'm not just talking about former Speaker Pelosi. There's several, and I'm sure they're on both sides of the aisle that will profit from this.

When we send our missile defense system over there, we have a rule to keep ours at a certain level of defense, at a certain level of readiness. And when we don't have them, we have to purchase them. So it's obviously those multibillion dollar contracts go to one or two contractors that we know that we have the only people that have that technology. So it's a pretty safe bet that your investments are going to go up.

[22:40:21]

I just don't think it's a good idea for us to be this war. You know, let's put it into context. Russia's GDP is somewhere between what, France and Canada. They're not the superpower as they was were, Jim. And I worry too the signals we're sending to China right now.

ACOSTA: But you can't let -- but you're not of the mindset that the Russians should just be able to blow through Ukraine and take over the country. You're not of that mindset?

BURCHETT: No, no, no. But I think we should have looked at economic -- look at the economic and the oil situation first instead of completely capitulating to them. And, you know, you remember the first couple of months of the war, people didn't like it. But in fact, we're funding both sides of that war with oil contracts because we still honored those contracts. And so I feel like we're talking out of both sides of our mouth on this thing, and we should have never had anything to do with it.

We should have provided economic pressure on Russia and gone with that first, gone with our diplomacy first before we led with the bullets. And I'm afraid we kind of got the cart before the horse. That's just my opinion. I'm fiscally reserved on these things. We're $32 trillion in debt, and so 114 billion unrestricted dollars to a country that's fairly corrupt to me is probably not a good investment.

ACOSTA: Well, you know, and of course, the Ukrainians would take issue with a lot of that. But let me ask you about China and how they might be looking at all of this. You said the Chinese will make a move on Taiwan, and after seeing Putin's hold on power challenge today, do you think Xi Jinping is reevaluating things?

BURCHETT: I think they are always playing chess and we're always playing checkers. You know, my thoughts on that are we've been so compromised they know our moves before we make them. I mean you go from TikTok to the balloon that flew over this country that just absorbed every bit of technology that we had to their infiltration to our colleges and campuses, through our research institutes, buying property around our military installations.

They are multifaceted, their investment in oil rigs so they can monitor our ingress and egress on our eastern and our southern seaboards. They're just everywhere. And so, you know, they're watching us and watching how we react. They're watching mostly our political movement during all this and just seeing what we're doing, because it's just like with the balloon, I don't -- I believe the most they got from that, they got a lot of technology, but they saw how we would react or not react, and they saw our military, how it would not react in our White House. So I think -- again, they're playing the long game.

ACOSTA: You know, somebody who -- we're getting back to Putin, I mean, I will ask you this, and I have to make this final question. Some of your party have elevated Putin as sort of this strong man to look up to. And I know as we're playing earlier, you called him a dirt bag and so on. Do you think some of your party need to be reassessing that, that analysis of Vladimir Putin as a strong leader?

BURCHETT: A hundred percent, 100 percent. I wish he was on a fast trip to hell right now, Jim. Honestly, he's caused nothing but suffering in this world, and he is a very bad person. And I would never -- I've encouraged my colleagues to be very cautious in that, because I think that sends the wrong message to our enemies, and it sends the wrong message to our friends. He's still a dirt bag, in my opinion, and it'll never change. And thank you, Jim, for having me on, brother.

[22:44:12]

ACOSTA: All right, Congressman, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it. We'll be right back.

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ACOSTA: Will destabilization spread after the insurrection attempt in Russia? The mercenary Wagner group claimed to capture key military facilities in two Russian cities and advanced about 120 miles to Moscow before turning around. Now another nation is involved. Russia says Prigozhin will not be prosecuted and will be exiled to neighboring Belarus. Ivan Watson joins me now. Ivan, how far could the impact of today's events be felt? You're in Hong Kong there. We were just talking to a congressman, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee a few moments ago. We were wondering, you know, might China be watching this, Xi Jinping. What's your sense of that? Might it have that kind of ripple effect, that kind of impact?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure. China was watching. The Chinese state media was covering what was happening there. And you had Chinese propagandists trying to find a positive spin to a mutiny led by Russian mercenaries who led a march on Moscow until abruptly turning around. That puts them in a difficult position. How do you make this look good when Xi Jinping right before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin signed a big agreement and declared themselves a friendship with no limits, other countries that would be watching closely, Iran which is making defense deals with Russia.

It's Iranian unmanned drones that are slamming into Ukrainian cities night after night. On a global scale, people have to be concerned. Russia has one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world. So when senior Russian generals are saying this is a coup attempt, when Vladimir Putin himself is saying that this could lead to something like the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the collapse of the entire state and civil war, people should think about what implications that could have, what could happen to those nuclear weapons. And closer you have in the former Soviet Union real concerns.

You know, while this was unfolding on Saturday, Vladimir Putin took the time to call the leaders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, two former Soviet republic that Russia still has security agreements with. One of them, the president of Kazakhstan notably made a point to say this is an internal Russian affair. Why is that important? Well, in January of last year, Vladimir Putin sent troops to Kazakhstan to help bail out the Kazakh president when he was facing his own bloody insurrection.

[22:50:23]

It doesn't appear that the Kazakhstan president is willing to offer the same in return. One step further, he's announced that he's going to have a meeting of his Security Council today, Jim. During which they're going to discuss measures to take to protect their country from any possible negative consequences of the instability in Russia. All of what has happened in the former Soviet Union after Russia invaded Ukraine has worried former Soviet republics that have been in Russia's sphere of influence and have led to moments where tens of thousands of Russian men have fled across the border to some of these countries to escape the draught. None of it has made Russia look stronger over the course of the last year and a half, and certainly over the past 24 hours, Jim.

ACOSTA: There's no question about that. All right, Ivan Watson with an excellent global view on things from Hong Kong for us. Ivan, thanks so much. And we'll be right back.

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ACOSTA: It was the biggest threat to Vladimir Putin's power yet, the head of a head of a Russian mercenary group with thousands of troops marching on Moscow and then suddenly calling it off. CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman is following all the developments for us this evening.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Jim, what a long, strange day it's been. It started early, with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin claiming to have seized critical military facilities in Rostov-on-Don, including the headquarters of Russia's southern military district, the strategic command center for much of Russian forces in southern and eastern Ukraine.

For Ukraine, it seemed the enemy was turning upon himself, that the ripples of chaos and disorder in Russia was reaching the front lines here. Ukrainian officials issued statements to the effect that this was the beginning of the collapse of Russia, of a civil war. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy even suggesting that Putin was on the run.

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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE: 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.

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WEDEMAN: Wherever he was, everything changed when it was announced that Prigozhin had agreed to stop his march on Moscow and return to base. Now, Saturday evening, Kyiv announced gains in a series offensives again around the now Russian occupied town of Bakhmut. But when all is said and done, the sound and fury of Prigozhin's brief insurrection came to naught. Jim?

ACOSTA: Ben Wedeman, thank you very much.

Still ahead, it's a new day in Moscow after an insurrection by the Wagner group. So what could happen next? That's ahead. You're live in the CNN Newsroom.

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