prigozhin accused russian defense minister sure gate shoigu of ordering a rocket strike on wagner s camps. in ukraine, but hours later after reportedly traveling some 120 miles outside of moscow, the wagner group leader ordered his forces to halt their march on the capital city, and return to their camps. in a post on telegram, prigozhin said the move was done in order to avoid russian bloodshed. now, this follows an announcement from belarus that the russian ally and neighbor had negotiated a deal to de-escalate the situation. kremlin spokesperson dimitri peskov provided some details of the compromise. russia s criminal case against prigozhin, that would be closed and he would go into exile and remain in belarus. moreover, wagner fighters who participated in today s offense will not be prosecuted. now, before we begin our reporting coverage for the hour, we want to give you some more context on this group, the wagner group. it is important to russia, its importance to the fi
that s mr. prigozhin s plan. and particular, i will be watching to see, does he keep active on his telegram channels? because he has a big loudspeaker now with a big following, and that is very dangerous for mr. putin. yeah. collin, there is no way that vladimir putin can except yevgeny prigozhin, just chilling out in belarus, talking to millions of people on telegram. and yes, it is anecdotal what the ambassador was talking about, but as his troops were leading, people were trying to shake his hand. people were trying to take pictures on wagner equipment. and that s not something that sits well with vladimir putin. look, i think as my colleague said, a lot of what prigozhin talked about resonated with ordinary russians. he talked about corruption, he talked about the elites kind of bleeding the state, and i think that s true for all of us who study this conflict and know the way that the kremlin works. there s a bit of sympathy there
prigozhin s troops will obey his orders and stand down, whether this rip within the kremlin, and how importantly, could all of this rebellion and fighting inside of russia impact the war in ukraine. let s get the very latest on the situation with nbc news chief court despondent richard engel. richard, how has the kremlin reacted to this? i alluded to dimitri peskov, talk to us broadly speaking about how they reacted to the past 24 hours. do they think wagner s groups retreat could mean a crisis is averted, or do they think that this could just be them buying some time for some more hormonal in the weeks and months ahead? no well certainly a kind of crisis has been averted. where we are now, compared to where we were 12 hours ago are completely different places. 12 hours ago it looked like a
little training and had been told to go off and fight in ukraine for a war that was poorly understood, based on vladimir putin s ideology and this very flimsy excuse that they are somehow fighting neo-nazis in ukraine, even though they re not neo-nazis in ukraine, and the president of the country, zelenskyy, is jewish. and he has nothing to do with near nazism. wagner troops were different. some of them wanted to fight, because prigozhin gave them the option. they were prisoners. he said, if you fight and you don t try to escape, you will be given pardons. you will be given your freedom. so they had a motivation. others were fighting because if they were treated, they would be shot. so they had either a motivation because they were afraid if they retreated they would be shot in the back, or they were motivated because if they survived the battle, they would be given a new lease on life.
washington. so i think this is a moment to say, even if you don t accept our analytic framework, realize that this is dangerous. the longer this war goes on, the week or the russian government, putin s regime becomes. and we don t have an interest in seeing chaos and disillusion there, so put more pressure on putin to end the war. that would be, if i were back in the government still, i would be quietly trying to make that message, especially in beijing. let me ask you really quick, ambassador mcfaul. this may be better for a military mind, but not to say that you re not a military mind. but were you at all surprised just how strange it was for wagner to take the city of rostov without much blowback? i mean, is that s how russian cities, they have not been fortified in the year or so at that this war in ukraine has been happening? that s mobility in and out of these cities has no forsman s? i mean, that s actually not