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Attempted Russian Rebellion Comes To Abrupt End; Blinken: Rebellion Shows "Real Cracks" In Russia; Danger Is Not Over For Putin In Destabilized Russia; Republicans Struggle To Navigate Abortion Issue; Evangelicals Say They're Motivated By Trans Issues; Ukraine Claims Successful Offensives In Bakhmut. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired June 25, 2023 - 11:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:53]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY, I'm Abby Phillip.

And coming up this morning, rebellion in Russia gives weight to retreat. A mercenary leader is now headed for exile. Vladimir Putin remains in power, but his grip on the Russian government appears weaker than ever.

Plus, is Russia's nuclear arsenal still secure? We'll ask a member of the House Intelligence Committee next.

And Donald Trump cast himself as a crusader who engineered a dramatic nationwide shift on abortion, but what he won't say might be just as important.

But up first for us, Vladimir Putin stares down a mortal threat and strikes a deal to save his skin. The American Secretary of State, right here on CNN, reacted to a whirlwind weekend in Russia and a rebellion aimed directly at the heart of Moscow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Do you believe that this is the beginning of the end for Vladimir Putin?

ANTONY BLINKEN, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: I don't want to speculate about that. We've seen this aggression against Ukraine become a strategic failure across the board. Russia is now distracted that Putin has to worry about what's going on inside of Russia as much as he has to worry about what he's trying to do not successfully in Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: This morning, there is still global confusion after a coup attempt crumbled almost as abruptly as it started. You can see here, Wagner Group mercenaries rolling out of Rostov-on-Don just mere hours after they rolled in and through the key Russian military hub. Mercenary gone rogue, Yevgeny Prigozhin told his fighters to stand down and he is headed for exile. His soldiers for hire are marching back to the frontlines in Ukraine.

We still know very little about that Belarus brokered deal to end the armed takeover of the Russian state. And we still haven't seen or heard from Mr. Putin.

But we start our coverage with CNN's Fred Pleitgen who is in Berlin. So, Fred, an extraordinary last 36 hours in Russia. What comes next?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there, Abby. Well, it's absolutely unclear what comes next. And it really is something that's very important for the U.S. on so many levels. You're absolutely right, we haven't heard or seen Vladimir Putin since he made that speech yesterday.

We have heard that he's been working in the Kremlin, but certainly so far, we haven't seen any evidence of that just yet. And then also there's, you have Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man who was behind this rebellion. And he's also someone we haven't heard or seen from -- who haven't heard from or seen in the past hours since he decided to pull back his forces there.

It's also interesting because I was checking out his social media channels as well. And there's absolutely nothing on that since last night. So it's unclear whether or not he actually made it to Belarus.

One of the things, of course, that we do know is that his forces are indeed pulling back, but what's going to happen to his private military company, to the Wagner private military company, again, absolutely unclear.

What we know from the Russians is that they say that the people who are part of the Wagner private military company, they can sign up for the Russian military because of their battlefield achievements so far. So that's something that could be integrated.

But, of course, all of this is much larger than that. Yevgeny Prigozhin also has massive media and propaganda assets. He's, of course, accused of meddling in the 2016 presidential election in the United States. And he also has massive assets in places like Syria, exploiting oil in places like Africa with a golden diamond trade there, training African forces. So this is something that is huge, and there really aren't any answers so far.

And just another thing, Abby, one of the -- or two of the people that we haven't heard from yet either is the Russian defense minister against whom this rebellion by Prigozhin actually happened or the chief of staff, Valery Gerasimov, both of them completely AWOL over the past few days, Abby.

PHILLIP: Yes, that's very curious and interesting there. Fred, you have also been covering Prigozhin as you were just talking about him for years. He is quite a character. But why do you think he started this rebellion and then dramatically abandoned it almost as quickly as it started?

PLEITGEN: You know, what I've been asking around Moscow, I've been asking around some people who know Yevgeny Prigozhin quite well, and there are people who say that, look, he is someone who was really tough, who is a hothead, and who may have thought that he was actually in a better position than he actually then turned out to be.

[11:05:10]

Certainly, if you look at the first pictures that we saw on the ground there, in the south of Russia, when his forces moved into one of the military headquarters for the Russian southern military command, the people on the streets there seem to be welcoming, the Wagner fighters, even the people in that headquarters, the Russian soldiers seem to be OK with the Wagner fighters there.

So it may have been that Yevgeny Prigozhin thought that he could pull all of this off. But one of the things, of course, it did happen is that he defied Vladimir Putin very publicly. And with that, we did see almost immediately all the players who are important to Russia's special military operation, the war in Ukraine, going behind Vladimir Putin.

You had the leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, some Russian generals, all of them telling Yevgeny Prigozhin not to do this, and that certainly seems to be where all of this then derailed where Yevgeny Prigozhin then found that he was actually quite alone, trying to march on to Moscow, and that all of this would not work out.

But it's really unclear whether or not he could actually -- he thought he could actually pull all of this out. But it certainly seems as though he's a pretty bad position now, Abby.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, there's so much more to learn about where this is all headed. Fred Pleitgen, thank you very much for being on top of the story all weekend.

And let's talk about all of this and more with our experts here. CNN's Alex Marquardt, former Deputy Director of National intelligence, Beth Sanner, and New Yorker contributing editor, Robin Wright.

What a weekend, what a glass couple of days here. I mean, it's really extraordinary. That moment -- there was a moment really, I think it was Saturday morning when it felt like we were watching something really historic unfold right before our eyes. And we may very well yet be watching that happen.

ROBIN WRIGHT, NEW YORKER CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Oh, absolutely. We all know that this is just the beginning. But I think we make a real mistake in saying that Vladimir Putin may be fatally weak, or this may be the end of the end of his 23 years in power.

This is a man who is as ruthless as Attila the Hun, who uses the murderous tactics of Ivan the Terrible, but has a small man Napoleon Complex. And he, you know, bullied his way through from the slums of Leningrad, now, Saint Petersburg, into power. And at the age of 70, this is his going to be his legacy. And he doesn't want to go out as a gracious loser. He's not like Gorbachev was and graciously seeing the transition of power. So this isn't over.

PHILLIP: Beth, do you think that this is part one? Could Prigozhin be trying it again? Or could this be a prelude to something totally different?

BETH SANNER, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I think that we have to be very careful about thinking about the implications here. We tend to kind of jump way ahead of where we are. I would not say that it's necessarily the beginning of the end. I don't necessarily see Putin being directly threatened, but I do think that there will be implications for this that will reverberate and will affect Putin's ability to accomplish things down the road, right?

So I think that, you know, in terms of when we ever -- if we get to a peace negotiation, for example, or how is he going to deal with foreign leaders? He's been definitely damaged by this, but what are the alternatives? And who is going to be willing to stand up and challenge him?

And let's not forget that Prigozhin was never popular within the elites. This is not a man that anyone around Putin would embrace or support.

PHILLIP: And he's also not a man that I think even, you know, Western countries, United States and its allies want to see anywhere near the Kremlin, frankly.

What has been going on inside of the White House National Security Council? A furious couple of days of calls and conferences at the last minute with all of the United States' allies?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, there is surprise on a number of levels. I think that the biggest surprise within the administration, within the intelligence community, is the way that this ended.

The fact that Prigozhin who was 125 miles, 200 kilometers outside Moscow, well, on his way facing absolutely zero resistance, decided yesterday afternoon, our time, to just give this all up. For what reason? We do not know. Allegedly, he's going to Belarus, whether he'll actually show up there. We don't know.

What we have learned, Abby, is that in the days leading up to this, there was intelligence that Prigozhin was going to carry out something like this. U.S. and in Western intelligence had seen assets being gathered, a buildup of weapons, a buildup of men.

Remember, Wagner had pulled back from Bakhmut in Ukraine. There was movement towards Rostov. So there was a sense within the intelligence community that this was actually going to happen. The only question I'm really told is when exactly this was going to happen.

[11:10:00] But there was still widespread surprise that Prigozhin actually went ahead and did this. Of course, you could say that this was building up for quite some time. He'd expressed his anger, not at Putin, but towards the military leadership for quite some time.

But -- so the U.S. and the White House, the administration, they did expect something like this to happen. I think the real surprise right now is why it ended so suddenly, and what it actually means for both Putin and Prigozhin.

SANNER: If you want to -- just adding to that, I mean, the people that were the most surprised, I think, were the Russians. And you've got to add this to another failure on the part of the FSB, who should have had this lockdown, their intel failure, the same people who failed on Ukraine, who failed Putin on Ukraine failed here. They didn't anticipate it.

There was no really significant military response to this and the rear guard showing how weak the Russians are and how they weren't prepared. And they did seem to be really caught off guard, so.

MARQUARDT: When you have the vast majority of your forces in Ukraine, you know, what are you actually going to use to defend the country? And the answer is the border guards and --

PHILLIP: Yes.

MARQUARDT: -- the FSB. And they were nowhere to be seen.

PHILLIP: Yes.

MARQUARDT: They literally stood by the side of the road and watched the Wagner troops barrel past Rostov and start heading up that in highway towards Moscow with absolutely no resistance.

WRIGHT: But Putin really wanted to preempt this. Look, there are a lot of things that are coming down the road. You have the NATO summit meeting in just two weeks. And this is 30 nations at a time that over the last year, the frontline. The Western frontline with Russia has more than doubled. And they have to make some big decisions about how much they invest in Ukraine and eventual membership of Ukraine and NATO. And that's the very reason that Putin invaded Ukraine in the first place.

So the stakes -- the timing of this couldn't have been worse for Putin. He wanted to shortcut this and whatever leverage whatever bribes, whatever blackmail went into it, he's kind of tried to pull the rug out from underneath it.

PHILLIP: There is this underlying to your point of impact on Ukraine. Here's Max Boot writing in The Washington Post, "We are now seeing that time might be on Ukraine side after all, because its government was democratically elected and enjoys the near unanimous support of its people to wage a war of territorial defense.

Putin and his unelected criminal regime, by contrast, intimidates the Russian people into acquiescence, but does not command loyalty or love. And we saw some of that when Prigozhin's troops going through parts of Russia and getting help and support and cheers from the Russian people.

WRIGHT: This is very much in the favor of Ukraine. It is true militarily because this then add some kind of psychological and military momentum. But it also comes at a time that the West has to make these big decisions about, does it continue to arm Ukraine in an open-ended way? Does it make the commitment at the NATO summit? You know, we're there for you until this is over.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean -- and as we are considering this, I mean, we talked about how Prigozhin is just -- I mean, he is -- to say that he's a character is an understatement, but he's incredibly unpredictable. And chaos inside of Russia might seem like a comeuppance for Putin, but at the same time, there are concerns about the nuclear stockpile. This is a major power with the largest stockpile in the world.

And look at these numbers here over 5,000 nuclear warheads. How concerned should we be about just broader instability in that state?

SANNER: Whenever we think about instability in a country that has nuclear weapons, be it Russia or North Korea, you worry about the instability because of loose nukes, right? The idea that somebody not being in charge, someone else comes in and takes over, takes control of a nuclear weapon, whether it's a person in charge are not in charge.

So it's really about losing control, rather than in this case, I do not worry about Putin deciding, I'm going to use a tactical nuclear weapon because I'm facing an internal thing. I mean, in fact, I think the reason we did not see the opposition to Prigozhin, two-fold, probably that they weren't prepared, they didn't have the people around, but also exactly what Putin spoke about in his speech that he did not want to have Russian on Russian bloodshed.

PHILLIP: And Prigozhin echoing that --

SANNER: Exactly.

PHILLIP: -- in his -- in his remarks.

SANNER: And so maybe Putin -- I mean, the complete capitulation was to avoid that second front, that internal civil war.

PHILLIP: Which would be -- you know, in the history of Russian conflicts, it would be quite bloody, quite messy involving not just the Wagner Group, but other mercenary groups and actors out there.

I mean, look, the possibilities are really endless. But for now, things seem to have tamped down. We'll see what happens next. Alex, Beth, and Robin, thank you all so much for joining us this morning.

[11:15:01] And coming up next, U.S. spies heard whispers of rebellion in Russia, but they were actually shocked by how quickly that plot unfolded. We'll hear from a member of the House Intelligence Committee about the extraordinary events of the last 48 hours.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: The rebellion in Russia ended almost as quickly as it began, but the danger is not over for Vladimir Putin and his regime. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that Russia -- the Russian president now faces questions about his shaky hold on power.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLINKEN: The fact that you have from within someone directly questioning Putin's authority, directly questioning the premises that upon which he launched this aggression against Ukraine, that in and of itself, is something very, very powerful. It adds cracks. Where are those go? When they get there? Too soon to say, but it clearly raises new questions that Putin has to deal with.

[11:20:10]

PHILLIP: And joining me now is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois. Congressman, thank you for joining us.

How tight, do you think, right at this moment, Putin's hold on power is after what we have seen transpire in the last 48 hours?

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): I think it's a little shaky. I think that, you know, when I think about what happened in the last 48 hours, I'm reminded of that Taylor Swift song on radio -- on all radios right now, namely "Karma." You, you reap what you sow right now in Vladimir Putin's Russia, where there's a mafia and ruthless kind of culture of power, which is the governing principle there. And it turns out that Prigozhin might be even more ruthless and barbaric than Putin.

And so I think that Putin right now is trying to consolidate power, trying to eliminate the possibility of Prigozhin somehow coming back, but it's all very tentative right now.

PHILLIP: Do you have any understanding based on what you may have heard, although I'm sure you cannot reveal any classified information, but in your role as an intelligence committee member about why Prigozhin did this and why he did it now?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Well, I can't get into the classified information. But what we know about Prigozhin is that he has questioned publicly the way in which this war has been waged in Ukraine. He also has very, very sharp personal disputes with a number of members of the Russian Defense Ministry.

And, you know, it came to the fore when these folks in the Russian Defense Ministry actually attacked his people in the rear in Ukraine, and numerous casualties and fatalities resulted. And so I got to believe, from Prigozhin standpoint, as we sit here right now, there's blood on the hands of Russian defense ministries officials today. And I don't think that's something that Prigozhin will soon forget.

PHILLIP: Do you think his goal was to topple Putin initially?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I don't know, but certainly, he was trying to, you know, go after Russian Defense Ministry officials.

But very interestingly, again, I think that they did not reengage him on his way to Moscow. And I have to believe that they did not think that they could eliminate him and the Wagner Group, which is much bigger than any other type of foe that they've dealt with before.

All that being said, you know, today, perhaps Prigozhin may be in Belarus, but I don't think that this feud has been settled. And as you know, there are tens of thousands of fighters who still, in some ways, are loyal to Prigozhin inside of Russia. And so that's a -- that's got to be a disturbing thing for Putin. And this also has implications for China, which I can talk about as well.

PHILLIP: Yes. I want to talk about Ukraine, though, as part of this. Western officials told my colleague, Jim Sciutto, on Friday that the counteroffensive that Ukraine has engaged in is, quote, not meeting expectations. I wonder if you think that the events of this weekend will change that, especially given that we don't know where these Wagner fighters are going to go.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: It could. You know, the Wagner fighting force was arguably the most effective component of Russian forces in Ukraine. And so the extent that they are not engaged in the fight to, you know, the way that they were before, that reduces overall effectiveness of Russian forces in Ukraine.

But even more than that, Abby, you know, Vladimir Putin is more concerned. I would argue, at this moment, about his internal position within Russia. And so this whole situation with Prigozhin is distracting him.

And I hope that it gives the Ukrainians some potential opening to press any advantages that they have on the battlefield in Ukraine, and hopefully, it gives them some ability to further their advances.

PHILLIP: I want you to listen to what one of your former colleagues said this morning. This is former Republican Congressman, Will Hurd, who as you know, is running for president. Take listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILL HURD, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We should have been planning with our allies. We should have been planning with the Ukrainians on how to take advantage of this opportunity. We should be supporting the Ukrainians more. I think that even goes as far as doing a no-fly-zone and helping them enforce that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Congressman, do you agree with that?

[11:25:01]

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I like Will Hurd, he's my colleague, but I disagree with him. I don't -- I think the Biden administration has handled this well and they should not engaged in any sudden moves at this point. Certainly none that could be interpreted or used by Putin to deflect attention from kind of the illegitimacy of what he's trying to do in Ukraine.

With regard to the no-fly-zone, again, any kind of attempt to enforce a no-fly-zone would engage U.S. forces directly with the Russians, and that could lead to an escalation. I think we should provide F-16 fighter jets which the Ukrainians can use to help to police their own air -- skies above Ukraine, as well as other armaments, but we should not directly get engaged.

PHILLIP: All right. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, thank you very much for joining us on this Sunday morning.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Thank you so much.

PHILLIP: And coming up next for us, a catering chef turned mercenary chief. A closer look at the man behind Russia -- the Russian rebellion, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:30:23]

PHILLIP: What was Yevgeny Prigozhin thinking? That is the question that many people in the west, and for that matter in Moscow, are asking after his short-lived rebellion. His motivations are about as muddled as the man behind them. Prigozhin has gone from serving time for petty street crime to being at the center of Russia's organized crime world. His catering business, a cover for more dubious endeavors, got him the nickname Putin's Chef, and now he is known as the leader of the global mercenary army. The Wagner Group is notorious for committing atrocities all across the world, and it's been involved in some bloody conflicts, not just in Ukraine, but also in the Middle East and in Africa as well.

And on top of all of that, Prigozhin is also the man behind the Internet Research Agency, and he was indicted by Special counsel Robert Mueller for meddling in the 2016 election.

And joining me now to discuss all of this is Julia Ioffe, Founding Partner and Washington Correspondent for Puck, and Steve Hall, CNN National Security Analyst and the former CIA Chief of Russia operations. Two people really ideally situated to kind of unpack this for us.

Julia, I want to start with you because you did a really fascinating profile of Prigozhin not so long ago. But help us understand how this man that Putin based basically kind of created ended up turning on him in this way?

JULIA IOFFE, PUCK FOUNDING PARTNER AND WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, he was a very convenient puppet. He was a caterer. He was somebody that Putin has known for a long time and trusted and seemed loyal. And to Putin, that is the most important criteria. Its loyalty over the span of decades, when you've been tested and tested again, have been proven loyal ironically.

He for a long time ran a catering business through which -- which then became basically a funnel for the Russian government to create this private military company called Wagner, which they thought would operate exactly the way they think Blackwater does, right? They thought Blackwater was an arm of the U.S. government that allowed the U.S. government to do things with plausible deniability, which is something Putin has long been obsessed with. So, through this catering business, the Kremlin funneled hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, to fund this mercenary company to do things that the Kremlin didn't want to be seen doing.

For example, being involved in the Central African Republic in Libya, in Mozambique, in Syria, in Eastern Ukraine, which is where they first cut their teeth in 2014, and that, you know, the first limited invasion of Ukraine.

And, you know, he proved -- Prigozhin proved to be a trustworthy ally. And he got things done. He did what he was supposed to do. And his fighters were some of the most effective fighters in Ukraine now in this full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But unfortunately, precisely because of that, Prigozhin got a little too big for his bridges.

PHILLIP: Yeah. And Steve picking up there, what do you think his goals were at the end of the day? I mean, was it really about Putin or was it about just making a point, perhaps?

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think, Abby, we could start with what wasn't his motivation. So the idea that Prigozhin is sort of a fatherly figure over this Wagner group of boys that he's recruited out of the prisons is not the case.

Julie's right, he is part of the Russian system, and therefore his primary concern is power. And his own power is paramount in that. So, I mean, one theory is that as the Wagner forces were marching, you know, north towards Moscow, it's possible that he could have told them, look, just go to the Ministry of Defense and demand Shoigu's head on a stick or something like that.

And then everything would have been resolved because of these supposed disagreements between the Russian Ministry of Defense and this paramilitary organization, the Wagner Group. I don't think that's actually what would have happened.

I think that had he decided to go all the way to Moscow, I don't think he would have stopped at the Ministry of Defense. I don't think there would have been any reason for him not to go for the whole enchilada if he had thought that he could actually pull off a successful coup. The main question that I have that I think is still unresolved it'll

be fascinating to see if it comes out over the coming weeks and months, is why did he stop? He seemed to have everything on his side. He was marching through Rostov. He was marching through all of these places, and he was being clapped and applauded. So why stop halfway there? That's the interesting question for me.

PHILLIP: Yeah, that's a huge question. And here's another question, Julia. I want you to listen to Putin yesterday.

[11:35:03]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT: Any internal turmoil is a mortal threat to our statehood, to us as a nation. This is a blow to Russia, to our people. So our actions to defend the Fatherland against such a threat will be severe. 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, Julia, the other part of the -- what happened yesterday question is, how did Putin go from saying that to then making a deal, dropping the charges, letting Prigozhin supposedly go to Belarus? Is it just water under the bridge?

IOFFE: That is, to quote a pretty infamous person, a known unknown. Here's the thing. It's not just how did Putin go from that to this? It's how did Prigozhin go from his response to Putin's speech, which was to say, basically, screw you. I'm the guy who knows what real Russia is, what the real interests are, and said, we'd have a new president soon.

But then later in the afternoon, Wagner started walking it back and started putting out messages on telegram saying that, actually, no, we don't want to change the president of the Russian Federation. We don't even want to change the government. We just want to have control of the Defense Ministry, which is still quite a big ask, but you saw them start walking it back during the day. So again, why did Prigozhin stop?

And to Steve's point, part of -- part of Prigozhin's power came from the fact that he did inspire tremendous loyalty from these tens of thousands of men below him, including the convicts who felt like he gave him a second chance at life, a way to get out and get some kind of freedom and pardon the pun of fighting chance.

And so the fact that he could just tell 25,000 people in a, you know, authoritarian, close to totalitarian regime and say, let's go march on Moscow, and they readily did it, and they were far more loyal to him than to Putin is part of his power.

The question is, he got 125 miles within Moscow, within striking distance of Moscow, and he suddenly stopped. What happened? I don't think we'll know for a little while.

PHILLIP: Yeah, I think that's going to be a made your question to be answered, Steve. Julia brings up an important point about these Wagner mercenaries. Where do they go now? Are they headed back to the front lines in Russia? Is there still a risk to Putin's regime if many of them remain on Russian land and are still loyal to Prigozhin?

HALL: Yeah, to answer the latter question first, there's no doubt in my mind that Vladimir Putin is significantly weaker today than he was, you know, before these events. There is a greater threat against him. He's shown weaknesses that we simply haven't seen before. That said, I'm not sure that the primary threat comes from the Wagner guys. So the first stop for the Wagner guys is the local Ministry of Defense office to sign the contract they are now going to be asked to sign, which will make them formally part of the Russian military, which in one sense, sort of disbands or at least significantly weakens the Wagner group.

But -- so that's good for Putin because at least nominally, he's got some more control over them than he had before. However, I think the biggest threat for Putin is for those that are very close to him, these siloviki guys, these guys who are the head of the security services, intelligence services, his closest advisors, who continue to see not only increased weakness in Putin, but misjudgment.

You know, I think what happened here is you got two guys, Prigozhin and Putin, who all of a sudden found themselves in a situation where both were saying, well, how do we get out of this? Prigozhin was saying, I might have to fight through, you know, Kadyrov's Chechen crazies to get to Moscow. And Putin saying, I got potentially 25,000 guys headed my way, headed to Red Square. What are we going to do? They clearly worked something out, but how they did it is fascinating.

PHILLIP: Yeah. They -- they both blinked in this conflict. It seems pretty clear at this point. Steve Hall and Julia Ioffe, thank you both very much for joining us this morning.

HALL: Sure.

PHILLIP: And coming up next, we will turn to domestic politics and the Republicans still struggling to navigate how to address abortion in a post-Roe world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:43:39]

PHILLIP: And turning now to news here at home, this weekend, the United States marked one year since the Supreme Court's blockbuster decision to overturn Roe versus Wade. Politically speaking, Republicans are still struggling to navigate the abortion issue, especially the ones who are running for president. And that was on full display at the Annual Faith and Freedom Summit here in Washington.

It's a gathering of influential evangelical voters and activists. Former Vice President Mike Pence told them that he is in support of a full federal ban, but he says a 15-week ban should be the minimum acceptable position.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let me say from my heart, the cause of life is the calling of our time, and we must not rest and must not relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in this country.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Now, Donald Trump has been quick to take credit for ending Roe, but he has also refused to back any specific federal restrictions. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: The greatest progress for pro-life is now being made in the states where everyone wanted to be. That's one of the reasons they wanted Roe v. Wade terminated, is to bring it back into the states where a lot of people feel strongly it should be. However, there, of course, remains a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:45:03]

PHILLIP: And with me now at the table is CNN's Eva McKend and Politico's Heidi Przybyla. Heidi, that little snippet of Trump was just a little bit of his 90 minutes remarks, and he did not give the antiabortion movement what they wanted. He's been trying to back away from being specific on this.

HEIDI PRZYBYLA, POLITICO NATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Abby, do you remember in 2020, right before the election, Donald Trump said, suburban women, will you please like me? He's thinking about that right now and avoiding answering this question.

And what's happening here is that he's facing two competing pressures, right? Everything that's happened since Dobbs says that he should not commit to an abortion ban because the intensity has profoundly shifted in this country of politics on abortion for 50 years, pro-life movement had the intensity. Now, everything that we see in the polling shows that we're at the high watermark for support for abortion rights. And this is pretty uniform, especially when it comes to suburban women.

At the same time, now he's in a primary, and he's being outflanked by candidates like Pence, like DeSantis, who are willing to commit to a federal abortion ban, and even in DeSantis's case, a six-week heartbeat ban bill. So that is the problem, is that Trump is thinking, I'm going to be pushed to the right to commit to this nationwide ban that then, in a general election is going to be really toxic.

PHILLIP: And to your point, look at this polling from NBC News, 66% of suburban women oppose overturning Roe. Look at that number for women under 50, 77%. Meanwhile, Mike Pence, he he's at 15 weeks. He says he wants a full federal ban, but he would take 15 weeks. That is going to make the conservative Christian right very happy. But what happens if he makes it to a general election?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: Yeah, it's going to be a liability in a general election. The reason why I think Trump, though, can be inconsistent with this issue and still have credibility with his voters. I think that the evangelicals last night were really happy with his speech from speaking with them is because of his record on this issue. So no one else in the field was a former president, and they were not responsible ultimately, for three conservative Supreme Court justices ascending to the high Court.

We don't have the landscape to day on this issue, on the issue of abortion without Trump and without those justices. So he can almost say anything he wants in the primary.

PRZYBYLA: In a primary is the operative word. Trump is looking at the primary numbers, and he's thinking about the general election, and he's thinking about all of these suburban women voters who are going to be reminded over this next year or two continually of what the court -- where the court is on abortion and the fact that abortion rights are now restricted for two out of five women who are of reproductive age.

And that's not going to stop because you've got the Court now also considering taking back medication-based abortion, which is support for that's even higher. And then the last thing, Abby, I wanted to say is that the one thing I think that we're not really thinking about, about why this is going to remain so fresh in the minds of women, is that since Roe fell, there's been 26,000 women who've been unable to get an abortion.

Those are not the women who have means, who've flown from Kentucky or Tennessee, from Tennessee or Missouri into Illinois to get their abortions, maybe had high risk complications. They are the poor women, and we don't know yet, we haven't heard those stories yet about what's happening to those women with their health care because they're in the states that have the strictest bans, but also the worst record when it comes to maternal health and access to health care.

PHILLIP: Eva, you were at Faith and Freedom all weekend. I want to play a little bit about what some of the people there told you, and it might surprise you what they did not talk about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: What would you say is the number one issue that you're most concerned about as we look towards November?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably the woke agenda.

MCKEND: And what does that mean to you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That means that I know what genders are, I know what a woman is, and I don't like it being taught to my grandson in school.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The destruction of our children, ignoring the fact that we're born male or female, we don't have a choice in that. You know, God has created us, male or female.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: It so if you are Ron DeSantis and you have to decide whether you're going to run on woke issues or on abortion, you might think maybe the woke issues are more salient to these voters.

MCKEND: It is apparently in the primary speak to about a dozen people at that forum of evangelical voters and the gender issue comes up time and time again. They're not talking about the economy, abortion, national security. It's as you heard there, I don't want my grandson to be told that he can be a girl and misgendering folks.

So that is why we see some of these candidates leaning so heavily into the cultural battle. We hear a lot of this from Vivek Ramaswamy as well. And I think that the other candidates who maybe want to take more mainstream positions, I'm thinking about former Congressman Will Hurd, for instance, who when -- when he frustratedly left the house, said that we don't need to focus so much on these issues and wanted to be a bridge builder and appeal to more Americans.

[11:50:21]

Well, that's not where this Republican Party, the base of the party is right now.

PHILLIP: It'll be interesting to see how that unfolds. Eva and Heidi, thank you both very much.

And what is Volodymyr Zelenskyy's next move? That's ahead.

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PHILLIP: Perhaps no one on earth was as happy as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about the short-lived rebellion yesterday in Russia. CNN's Ben Wedeman, is in Ukraine near the Eastern Front in Zaporizhzhia. Ben, so how is Ukraine trying to take advantage of this turmoil?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, there's a saying attributed to Napoleon, Abby, that never interfere with your -- when your enemy when he's making a mistake. And that was the attitude yesterday while the drama was unfolding in Russia. Ukrainian officials were pretty quiet, just watching like everybody else here what was going on. But of course it ended when the Prigozhin basically declared he was ending his so-called march for justice and went back to the barracks.

[11:55:07]

But we did hear for I'm one adviser to the president who said that they were hoping for something a little more concrete, perhaps a civil war. He said that, well, maybe it will still happen. In the meantime, the Ukrainians are carrying on as you with this war. We have seen reports that the Ukrainians managed to take about 0.6 of a mile of trenches in the area around Bakhmut, which is, of course, since May has been occupied by Russian troops.

Ukrainian officials continue to stress they still have not thrown the bulk of their forces into their counter offensive. So we can expect that perhaps in the aftermath of the chaos in the Kremlin, that they are still going to make their move.

But we've spoken with soldiers in the Bakhmut area who told us, even during the disorder in Russia that we saw yesterday, that the Russian troops didn't seem to be doing anything different, that they're still putting up a fight. Abby?

PHILLIP: All right, Ben Wedeman, on the front lines there in Ukraine. Thank you very much.

And that's it for us here on Inside Politics Sunday. Thank you again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. Have a great rest of your day.

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