Page 574 - Command News Today

World. i am michael holmes and we do begin with breaking news, enormous lyrical of people in russia were an intelligence official is accusing the mercenary leader, yevgeny prigozhin, of trying to stage a coup. i want to show you new videos of soldiers on the streets in russias rostov region which yevgeny prigozhin claims his troops are entering from ukraine and are ready to destroy everything in their way. is unclear who is in command of the troops you see there on their screen. the local govern...

We are not sure at least out here in the studio of who is in charge of the russian army right now. and will the soldiers listen? that is whats going on. there is a public propaganda battle over who has command. already youve forces who are not the most loyal in every case. >> we are running out of time, what will you be watching as the day goes on? as we watch what is happening in russia. >> the ground movements of wagner forces heading north, im watching what russian official state in moscow or...

>> so rostov was the operational objective. to me, its quite clear why. when i was in government, when i was in moscow, i spent enormous amounts of time driving up and down the road from moscow to rostov. this was -- you know, i had a job to observe and report for the u.s. government at the beginning of this war, in 2014. i know this terrain quite well. rostov is the seat of russian military power. it is the headquarters of the southern military district. it is the joint operational command for ...

Their pentagon. thats probably close to an apt comparison because thats where a lot of the military is centered, but its not entirely there, but it went down, you know, very, very quickly to these soldiers who had seized it in a surprise and again, the same soldiers under the command of yevgeny prigozhin, who was and remains a rock star general in the eyes of many russian folks who back home say hes returning them to the greatness they enjoyed, and they were looking forward to the greatness that...

Ukraine are based. nbc news is working to verify these claims. retired u.s. army content steph twitty, former deputy commander of command is back with me. lieutenant general, let me, i want to pick up on the conversation you and i were having just before the break. the slow progress we were talking about in terms of ukraines counteroffensive that has begun, or had begun before all of this internal strife in russia took place yesterday. if we have it, i would love to pull up a map, because there ...

And truman now had you popular he was and he had that command and exercised it. in vladimir putins case, prigozhin is a rock star. i dont know if he remains one with troops in the city or in the country, but hes got to be careful how he handles him, or does he? >> well, i would ask some of the, you know, oligarchs there, whether or not who have been standing next to putin, in spite of the problems with this war, are they going to now shift allegiances to prigozhin? as a result, putin is not only...

Developments in russia could affect the war in ukraine? >> well one immediate effect is that rostov-on-don is a forward-operating base to some degree for russian forces in ukraine. its a logistical center. supplies. head to russian forces on the front lines in ukraine from there. but it is also a command and control center. and the pictures we have there right now are wagner forces taking over the hq, the headquarters there in rostov-on-don. so that is believed to have an effect over time. in te...

Out prigozhin in some miracle, even if that happens, we are going to see a weakening of the russian military that already has fissures and fractures and very low morale. and people on the front lines are watching telegram channels and thinking like, hmm, maybe i dont want to die for this. so we dont really know how this will turn out. but i think that -- i do think that it is going to have implications that we are not yet able to see, that will be pretty fundamental. >> peter, how concerned shou...

Prigozhin. what does it say that they were able to take over rostov-on-don, where russias headquarters for its war for ukraine are headquartered, that they were able to take that city, or take that headquarters, without firing a shot? so, they say. what does that say about the morale and the loyalty of russian forces as this is going on? >> i think thats the big question. as we see events unfold, how loyal are the rank and file in the russian military going to be to vladimir putin? and to the ru...

Remember, they did start the counter-offensive already. they didnt have a lot of success with it. theyve pulled back. and now, theyre starting to plan how to get through those very tough defensive lines shall and those very tough troops. if you take the wagner forces off the battlefield, if you take effective command and control off the battle field, and hopefully zelenskyy is seeing this, as a time to figure out what the next steps are, on the battlefield for he and his forces. >> if you were a...