ta takes place, the russian defense ministry have been taking control of wagner s, the mercenary group s heavy weapons and ammunition. there have been some dramatic images of that as well. and it seems that the kremlin is tightening its grip and sort of purging dissidence within its ranks. matthew, thank you very much. and i want to go now to thomas grove, the wall street journal reporter who broke that story that i mentioned at the top of the program about more senior russian military officers being detained and questioned in the wake of this mutiny, along with retired lieutenant general mark hurtling, the former commanding general for europe and the 7th army. thanks to both, and thomas, let me start with you. this is pretty incredible reporting. you have been able to crack down, you and your team that more russian military officers have been detained and fired in the wake of the wagner coup. and you re also reporting that general surovikin is not just resting, he is being detai
of the military headquarters, his ability to move troops further north raises that very pertinent question, how many other military generals had wind of this, were actually on prigozhin s side. but in the case of surovikin, he very quickly when this began to unfold came out in a video telling prigozhin to back down. and it was noticeable that he actually had a kalashnikov on his lap when he made that statement, which is sort of bizarre in itself. really, really interesting. a sort of game of thrones playing out as we see there in the russian military. nick, thank you for the report. bore snis. let s expand the conversation now with retired lieutenant general mark hertling. he s a former commanding general for the u.s. army europe and the 7th army. general, great to share an afternoon with you. thanks for being with us. first on president biden describing vladimir putin as being weakened by this attempted coup.
said today was a very good day for the ukrainian army. thank you very much fred in kyiv. i want to go now to general mark hertling, the former commanding general for europe and the 7th army. the offensive is taking place in several directions. it s multiple locations. what are you seeing? erin, i got to start off by first complimenting you on using the clause, the internal fog of war. when we re talking today, we ve been talking bakhmut for the last several months. now we re going to include voladar, belgorod, smolensk and about a hundred other places. we re talking about an offensive that won t be a massive beach landing like we ve seen in the movie saving private ryan where tens of thousands of forces are coming together all at once. it will likely be multiple
be democratically devoted person, in fact, he was always a kgb agent and right now he performs as he is a natural person, putin s kgb agent. thank you so much for your time. we appreciate it. thank you. and now outfront retired army general mark hertling of the 7th army. you heard there from the former prime minister, kasyanov saying that shows how nervous putin is about the coming offensive. from a military standpoint, what would russia be trying to do with those strikes? they re trying to interfere with their connection between the political body and the decision makers in the kyiv government, president zelenskyy with his field generals, general zaluzhnyy. there s been messaging on the internet saying that president
nato, but what zelenskyy has told them today, those gathered arab leaders s look, it s our country, a third has been taken by russia at this time. it s our children that russia is taking and stealing to their country at this time. so really he s just trying to interrupt putin s narrative and explain to potential friends and partners and in saudi arabia he sees that as a potential ally here, a supporter, a country that s providing a huge amount of humanitarian support and potentially further support in the future. when he gets to the g7 it s a different message. he will be sitting down there with the leaders that he knows are the ones that control the military fate of his army because they have the weapons that he wants. he wants more ammunition, he wants those fighter jets and we heard from the european council president today, european council president sean michelle in japan today saying that the f-16s, the fighter jets that zelenskyy wants will be getting discussion. we ve heard thi