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Uncertainty Looms Over Russia After Mercenary Rebellion; Putin's Power in Question After Armed Revolt; Wagner Group Leader's Whereabouts Unknown. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 26, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: At least one person has been killed in the area.

The storm is also leaving hundreds of thousands without power in the Midwest and the south. Severe thunderstorm alerts are in place with large hail and powerful winds for Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.

Nearly 40 million people are also under heat alerts from Arizona to Alabama, with temperatures expected in the triple digits.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: We'll keep an eye on that weather. Also, our top story, what happened in Russia over the weekend. CNN This Morning continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A weekend of chaos and drama in Russia.

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: What we've seen is extraordinary, and I think you've seen cracks emerge that weren't there before.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mercenaries declared a mutiny and then called it off in under 24 hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is something that would have had to have been planned for a significant amount of time to be executed in the manner in which it was.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was a visible rejection of his war policy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: By a guy who (INAUDIBLE) his ally.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a lot we don't know precisely where Prigozhin is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He did say that Vladimir Putin's reasons for invading Ukraine were invalid and that's something that he's going to really struggle to recover from.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Growing questions about Vladimir Putin's leadership going forward and whether his iron grip on Russia is weakening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This makes him more vulnerable, arguably, than he has at any time in his two-decade rule.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the streets of a major Russian city, residents cheered Wagner fighters as they withdrew.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A calamity for Russia averted. But at what cost and will it hold?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are unknowns at the moment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Well, good Monday morning, everyone, what a weekend it was. I didn't know where we would be as a world given what happened in Russia come Monday morning.

MATTINGLY: And I think the fascinating thing is I'm not sure the leader of Russia necessarily knew. I don't think a lot of the U.S. officials necessarily knew.

HARLOW: That's true.

MATTINGLY: Certainly a lot of unanswered questions still as we enter this moment.

HARLOW: And what does this all mean for the war in Ukraine? So, this is where we begin.

MATTINGLY: Yes, that's exactly right.

Now, this morning, there is growing doubts about Vladimir Putin's grip on power after a mercenary rebellion inside Russia threatened the regime. The revolt appears to be over for now after 36 hours of chaos and confusion. But there are still a lot of unanswered questions, such as we don't know where the Wagner mercenary group's leader is after abruptly ending the march on Moscow. Yevgeny Prigozhin supposedly made a deal with the Kremlin to stand down and go into exile in Belarus.

These, what you're looking at right now, some of the last images of Prigozhin leaving a military headquarters his troops had seized in Southern Russia. We haven't heard from Putin either after the most dramatic challenge ever to his 23-year rule. He had vowed to punish Prigozhin for treason.

HARLOW: Take a live look at moscow, where life is looking like normal, right? We didn't know it was going to be this way given what happened on Saturday. The city was preparing for a siege, but the mayor says all security restrictions imposed over the weekend have now been lifted.

Meantime, Ukrainian forces say they're making gains on the battlefield and their counteroffensive as Putin grapples with the fallout from the rebellion at home. We have live team coverage on all of these angles, Matthew Chance in Moscow, former CIA chief of Russia operations Steve Hall with us at the magical wall, Ian Bremmer and our other experts standing by for much analysis in the studio.

Matthew, let's beginning with you in Russia. Russian state media reports that the investigation into Prigozhin is not over, which is notable because we were told over the weekend, part of the deal was, he would have to go to Belarus but he wouldn't be charged with anything. Now, that has changed?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it seems to, although there's also some confusion about his fate and his whereabouts. He was meant to be going to Belarus essentially in exile as part of this deal to turn back his armored column that was essentially threatening the Russian capital. And the Kremlin said that all charges against him and his men would be dropped.

But now, the TASS news agency, which is an official state-run news agency here in Russia, is saying that, in fact, the charges of insurrection against Yevgeny Prigozhin are still under way, and so it's still continuing. And so we don't know what's going to happen, but, obviously, we're watching it very closely.

Certainly, one way of watching what happens in this country is keeping an eye on the newspapers and state media. You can see here, we're going to (INAUDIBLE) to the camera, this is a newspaper called Moskovskij Komsomolets, which is a very popular newspaper in this country.

And you can see there's a little picture in the corner there of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man it says behind the armed uprising. Its headline says that Prigozhin is gone but the problems remain. And it goes on inside, talks about how it's important for the states to maintain the monopoly on legalized violence. And if it loses that monopoly, it says then the very existence of Russia or the Russian state is under threat. I mean, there's all sorts of opinions being expressed in the local media here.

[07:05:02]

But also on television as well, state-run, we were watching current affairs shows that are very prominent in this country on a Sunday night, as they are in the United States. And one of them was talking about how Prigozhin had essentially failed to gain the support of the army. Prigozhin, it said, was not supported by the people. The people went with the president, although, of course that doesn't tally, necessarily, with all the things that we've witnessed over the course of this incredible few days.

MATTINGLY: All right, Matthew Chance --

HARLOW: From Moscow, Phil?

MATTINGLY: Thanks, Poppy, thanks, Matthew Chance. Let's go ahead and talk about the key players in this weekend's rebellion. We want to talk to CNN National Security Analyst, former CIA chief of Russia operations Steve Hall. Steve, there are a lot of questions right now, a lot of confusion, a lot of people didn't think anything like this was possible. Let's start with Yevgeny Prigozhin. Who is he?

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYOST: Sure. So, we've got a good shot of Yevgeny over there. The thing that strikes me about Prigozhin is the most interesting thing is that he is one of the few, if any, of these players we've seen in Moscow over the past couple of decades being able to make the jump from essentially an oligarch. Remember, he started off as Putin's chef. He was basically the catering service for the Kremlin, which is a pretty bigger job than you might imagine. But he was able to make the jump from being that kind of guy to basically a military warlord. There's very few people in Russia who have ever done that. We'll talk about Mr. Kadyrov in a minute, but he might be the best comparison. Really unique background.

MATTINGLY: Did you expect something like this? He's been very public in his attacks of the military officials, has always tried to keep the line between the military officials and President Putin. Were you surprised by what happened over the weekend?

HALL: You know, not really. This has been bubbling up for the last couple of months. I mean, Prigozhin has had the gall, as I think how President Putin would see it, as criticizing the Ministry of Defense, all sorts of people in the Russian military structure, never Putin himself because that's forboden, you don't do that in Russia. But I'm kind of surprised that the intelligence services inside of Russia didn't see this coming as quickly as it just suddenly popped up over the weekend.

MATTINGLY: Your sense of the explanation for Prigozhin deciding to turn around 124 miles from Moscow with a deal that we don't really have clarity on what it actually is yet, why?

HALL: So, this is amazing, just that statement that you made, 120 miles from Moscow. He's starting off down here. This is, you know, Rostov-on-Don. He makes it all the way just past Voronezh, which these are both major cities. So, not only did he make it that close, so that's a surprise, but there was basically no resistance.

MATTINGLY: Unimpeded.

HALL: Yes. I mean, this is a major military base. This is like imagine Fort Bragg or something in the United States, blows through that town. Voronezh is a pretty good-sized town. Certainly, there should have been deployed from Moscow all sorts of defenses here, for some reason, they were not. The bigger question, why would he have stopped?

MATTINGLY: Also a major military base where they're controlling the military operations in Ukraine at this point in time, which is fascinating. You saw the video of him sitting with the leaders of that military base, castigating them to some degree. We talked about how Prigozhin spent months railing on two military leaders in particular, what do we know about them?

HALL: Well, let's take a look at Mr. Shoigu and Gerasimov here. So, excuse me. So, what you have here is really a contrast between two guys. You have Gerasimov, who has been around essentially forever, this guy has come up through the military, he's the closest thing that I think the Russians have as a true military leader who has come up through the ranks. You talk to American and other western senior military officials and they'll say they can talk to a guy like this, speak the same language.

Shoigu, on the other hand, has never had, this is his first military experience. So, you might say, okay, our secretary of defense here in the states doesn't need to be, for example, a military leader, but Shoigu really has zero experience except for his connections to Putin. That's the most important thing. By the way, Gerasimov is not the first guy to hold this job. They've been cycling through lots of generals.

MATTINGLY: Yes, and was just shifted back over atop everything. It's a fascinating dynamic, a lot of different players here, learning about a lot of them. Steve Hall, thanks for helping us understand.

HALL: Sure.

MATTINGLY: Poppy?

HARLOW: All right. Let's bring in -- we have been having also fascinating a time listening to Steve on what he's been saying. We're going to talk a lot more about that, what this all means, especially for Vladimir Putin.

Let's bring in Ian Bremmer. He's a president of the Eurasia Group, also author of the Power Crisis, How Three Threats and Our Response Will Change the World. Also with us at the table, CNN Political and National Security Analyst David Sanger is back, and CNN Senior Political Commentator, former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger. Thank you all for being with us.

Let me begin with you and how important you think it is that NATO was so in lockstep in response to this. IAN BREMMER, PRESIDENT, EURASIA GROUP: Well, given the fact they had

no idea what was going to transpire as all of these rebel troops were heading towards Moscow, they did not want to create any provocation. And what we saw was NATO in absolute lockstep. Low level American officials were in touch with Russia, letting them know there was no need for a high-level direct contact between the Americans and the Russians, also making it known that no NATO troops were moving while any of this was going on.

[07:10:13]

The only thing that implied a level of concern around the crisis was that American officials on the ground with the embassy were all basically on lockdown in the embassy, in the diplomatic complex. But that was it. No evacuation. Every member of NATO had the same talking points, were doing their damnedest to ensure that nobody was blamed for interfering with what was happening domestically inside Russia at this time. Let the Russians have their own problems. The Americans are going to continue to lead in providing defense forces to the Ukrainians, money to the Ukrainians. That's what this is all about.

MATTINGLY: If that is the US posture, the NATO posture, what is the posture right now for senior Russian officials as they watch what's played out?

BREMMER: Well, one thing we can say is that Putin has been tested as never before. So, we learned a couple of revealed things. One is that there were no defections among senior Russian military officials, senior Russian government officials, no oligarchs that suddenly came out and said, we're opposed to Putin. So, in that regard, not all that much has changed.

On the other hand, a lot of people around Russia have been jailed or assassinated for a lot less than what Prigozhin has just ostensibly gotten away with. It's inconceivable to me that he remains a free man, not imprisoned, not dead over the --

HARLOW: But why? I think that raises such an important question. Why then, in the last 36 hours, has Putin not ordered Prigozhin's death? Why is he still alive then? And why this deal with Belarus and Lukashenko?

BREMMER: I think the timing was enormously problematic for Putin. I mean, if he had decided to engage in a full fight with not just Prigozhin, but all of the Wagner forces under him in Moscow, one, you don't have certainty in how the Russia's defenses are going to actually act on the ground, in that sense, you also are fighting front lines against the Ukrainians. They have about 11 divisions right now that are equipped and ready in position for the counteroffensive. Only about two-and-a-half have actually started seriously fighting so far.

So, the Russians understand that. And they'd be concerned if suddenly you've got the Kadyrov troops, the other major paramilitary, loyal to Putin, they were peeling off and said they're going to fight against Wagner. Who knows what's going to happen with the Russian Defense Forces. If you don't cut a deal with Prigozhin at this moment, you potentially have an enormous vulnerability in your defensive frontlines that so far have been holding up pretty well.

HARLOW: So, it's a matter of time.

BREMMER: I assume it's a matter of timing, and that Prigozhin is in a very different situation. You remember, I think it was Empire Strikes Back on Beston (ph) when they said, pray that we do not alter the terms of the deal any further. I think that Putin is in the role of Darth Vader right now.

HARLOW: Wow.

MATTINGLY: Congressman, Ian makes a really great point. The unity and I think aligned messaging you heard from not just the U.S. but NATO countries throughout the course of the weekend was, I think, understandable, to some degree, predictable. But it was also interesting in the sense of there could be opportunities right now for Ukrainian forces, for western-backed Ukrainian forces. Do you think it is wise the position that the U.S. and its allies have taken up?

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think at the moment, I think during this, I'll call it a crisis opportunity, whatever the Wagner was on the march, I think the U.S. and NATO was right to kind of stand back. What's the old adage? If your enemies killing themselves, don't help them, stand back and watch. And so this was certainly good for Ukraine in the long run, certainly bad for Putin in the long run. So, I think that was right.

What I'm very concerned with, and I think a good lesson to take from this is we don't have to tiptoe around Vladimir Putin. There's always been, particularly out of the administration, this idea that we can't do this one more thing, because we're just going to cross Vladimir Putin's red line. We can't give him ATACMS, and the U.K. gives them Storm Shadows, pretty close to the same thing.

That's where the administration hopefully can see what transpired over this and say, look, this red line that Putin puts out isn't really a red line. He will advance until he hits a brick wall. And in that case, and at this moment, doesn't mean we introduce troops to Ukraine, but it's like, let's give them what they need to win and end the war in Ukraine, finally.

HARLOW: Go ahead, David.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I mean, I certainly understand why it is that we've discovered over time that the red lines we thought existed didn't really exist. On the other hand, you have to think Vladimir Putin has some red lines out there.

And so what have we learned this weekend? We learned this weekend there are bigger cracks than we knew, and that is likely to make Putin more paranoid than he's been. And he's been pretty high on the paranoid list so far, so he's going to be even more so now.

[07:15:02]

We also know that, at some point, when he really becomes dangerous is when he thinks he's really cornered. It was interesting that when President Biden was at a fundraiser in New York in October, at the height of our concern about nuclear use, the first thing he said was, the lesson of the Cuban missile crisis is you've got to let Soviet leader-then, Russian leader now, have an exit ramp. And he was quite concerned about what that was.

I'm not sure that Vladimir Putin came out of this weekend with an exit ramp. And in some ways, while it may have been a short-term sit around, watch this happen, I'm not sure in the long run that this makes Putin any less dangerous, and it might make him more dangerous.

KINZINGER: Yes, Putin does have a red line, that's obvious at some point. And I think that's according, if you read the Russian military doctrine, it's invasion of Russian territory. Now, he can saber-rattle --

SANGER: (INAUDIBLE) the regime, right?

KINZINGER: Well --

SANGER: They were threatened from within.

KINZINGER: The regime will be threatened at some point. It will either be threatened with a Ukrainian victory today or Ukrainian victory in a year. I don't think anybody should be standing around saying our best hope is for a stalemate here. Our best hope is for a frozen conflict, because, eventually, Putin will be cornered. Eventually, it's not going to be Prigozhin. Eventually, it's going to be somebody else that marches them, some military general.

BREMMER: So, one thing that is more likely now is that the Ukrainians should have more successes in their counteroffensive. So, over the coming months, their ability to retake more of their territory is greater than it was 36 hours ago. And that also means that the position of the Americans and others to be able to promote a negotiation that makes it look like Zelenskyy is not losing face, that he is being integrated into the E.U., he is getting significant amounts of money for reconstruction. All of that is real.

But I agree with David that an exit ramp for Putin, which already was looking deeply problematic, is now looking a lot harder. We learned that he doesn't really have friends, right? I mean, Belarus, which isn't effectively sovereign, let's be clear, Prigozhin is still kind of in Russia right now in terms of Russian intelligence and Russian special forces and all the rest.

But the Chinese, when Putin was facing an existential threat, said virtually nothing, referred to it as an internal Russian matter, and did not provide any support, any military support to the Russians, just as they have not over the past months. Kazakhstan, the Russians pulled the Kazakh president's chestnuts out of the fire a year-and-a- half ago, when there was a coup in Kazakhstan. The Kazakh president came right now and said, Russian issue, we're not touching that. The tables have turned.

HARLOW: Can you help us understand why Prigozhin turned back when he did? I think that was one of the most stunning parts of the weekend after the fact that it happened, the pace with which he said, never mind.

BREMMER: Well, first of all, let's keep in mind that Prigozhin, who we know has been involved in the frontlines, watching assassinations around some of his inner circle, I mean, feeding his troops into a meat grinder in the frontlines in Bakhmut for the last few months, none of us are capable of putting ourselves in the emotional state of being that Prigozhin has been facing.

So, I'm willing to say that the quality of his decision-making is perhaps not what one would otherwise expect, right. There's no one in a position of power right now that's facing what he's been facing over the past months. The decision to go into Moscow felt to me like a man who truly was facing desperation. He was told by the Russian government, you either let your people -- force your people to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense, so you lose control, or you're insubordinate to the Kremlin, and not just the MOD, but to Putin himself. What kind of a choice is that?

So, when he finally decided, okay, I can't do it. I'm not going to let my people sign those contracts, he was already dead man walking. So, at that point, he throws himself and his troops against Moscow, does whatever he can. And I think when he's offered a line, when he knows that fighting Moscow itself with troops that are reporting directly up to Putin, not part of the normal MOD structure, I think he recognizes that he's going to die, his people are going to die. And so he gives up. But I don't think anyone knew that was going to happen, I don't think went in confidence that was going to happen a day ago.

SANGER: We still don't know what was in the deal he signed.

HARLOW: Right.

SANGER: Right, or didn't sign. But --

HARLOW: Or where he is.

SANGER: We don't know where he is. We don't know where Putin is, interestingly. We last heard from him on Saturday morning. There's some indication he may not be in the Kremlin, but we don't know. But the deal is sort of interesting because we were told it was brokered by the leader of Belarus, maybe it was. But the fact of the matter is, presumably Prigozhin would have wanted some guarantee that Shoigu and others or the other military leadership are out.

BREMMER: But what does a guarantee for Putin mean? I do believe that the Wikipedia page for Wagner right now can say liquidated.

[07:20:03]

It's not going to exist going forward. And that's a great thing. That is a great thing.

HARLOW: Everyone, stay with us. We have a lot more to talk about, so you don't get to go anywhere.

Wagner's rebellion in Russia sparking reaction from both present and potential leaders around the world. How the 2024 Republican candidates for president are responding, that's ahead.

MATTINGLY: And Wagner Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has been exiled to Belarus, but now it's unclear, as David was noting, where he actually is. We're live with more details coming up ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: Welcome back. It's important to note this morning we're still actually waiting for confirmation on whether Wagner Group Leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has arrived in Belarus, where he is at all, after ordering his troops to stop marching toward Moscow. According to the Kremlin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brokered deal ending the short-term rebellion inside Russia.

Now, as part of that deal, Prigozhin is set for exile in Belarus and will avoid criminal mutiny charges in Russia, but, so far, no word on his whereabouts or all the specifics of that deal.

[07:25:00]

CNN's Nic Robertson joins us live from London this morning. Nic, I've got a million questions about this, but the primary one is how did Lukashenko help reach this deal? What do we actually know about what it is?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Okay, so the Kremlin says that Lukashenko has a 20-year history of knowing Prigozhin, so the two have a connection. This doesn't pass a sniff test at face value until perhaps we know more details, and we may never do that. There is no way that President Putin would allow a weak neighbor who is a supplicant to him like Lukashenko to negotiate a deal without him having some say so in it.

Prigozhin has leverage. He has leverage because he's been the Kremlin's go-to guy for setting up all sorts of business deals and support in the Central African Republic, in Mali, in Sudan, in Libya. These are lucrative. They're worth money to him. This is more than just about money and power, more than just about power in the inner circle around Putin. This is also about money.

So, Shoigu -- Prigozhin has had something to negotiate with his value to the Kremlin on those overseas operations. That's a currency that will erode with time. But I think Lukashenko's role in this has been very much at the behest of Putin rather than a loan operation.

MATTINGLY: Nic, one of the things we haven't actually seen Prigozhin since Saturday, when he seemed to be almost hailed as a hero, as he was departing Southern Russia, do we have any idea where he is? Do we think he's actually going to Belarus? Could he go to one of those African republics? What's your sense of things?

ROBERTSON: I think that he would feel safer the further from Moscow he can get right now. He won't trust the Kremlin. There are indications that the Kremlin are going reneging on their word that he has some kind of amnesty out of this. So, I think that's going to be a difficulty for him. In Belarus, he's easily accessible to the Russian military, to Russian intelligence. The value that he has with these connections and assets inside Africa, that is going to erode and he will know that.

So it's probably safe for him to get furthest from Moscow. He can. He knows that the Kremlin is reneging on it, on its words. So, he knows he can't trust them. He knows that he's been disloyal to Putin and Putin hates disloyalty. He knows his days are potentially numbered.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Nic Robertson, great reporting and great context, as always. Thanks so much.

HARLOW: Thank you, Nick. Coming up, how the 2024 Republican presidential candidates are reacting to all these developments in Russia over the weekend.

MATTINGLY: And take a look at this, a twister ripping through a town outside Indianapolis, damaging at least 75 homes. That's ahead, coming up.

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