Theres increased security in with whats being called anti terror measures. The m4 which links the russian capital with cities in south, such as rostov, is closed because of a military convey that is moving along it. The kremlin has called for prigozhin� s arrest with top russian generals telling wagner forces to stand down and the russian president Vladimir Putin has given a tv address and said russia is facing a betrayal. Heres mr putins Television Address to the russian nation. Translation any actions that split us are a betrayal of your people, a betrayal of the comrades that are fighting on the front line, a knife in the back of our people. This struck russia in 1917, when russia was waging the first world war, victory was stolen from us. Politicking behind the back of the army and the people turned into huge upheaval, the destruction of the army and the state. The loss of huge territories. As a result, it was tragedy, russian killing russians, civil war. And benefit was derived by various political adventurers, foreign powers that are tearing the country apart. We shall not let this happen again. We will defend our people and our state. Including against internal strife and betrayal. And that is what we are facing, betrayal. And when personal ambitions takeover, overfaith in your own people and the cars for which the soldiers the wagner group are fighting shoulder to shoulder, those who liberated villages, they fought and gave their lives for new russia. This is a betrayal by those who are pushing the country to anarchy and fratricide. Ultimately defeat and keep alienation. I shall repeat, any internal mutiny is a serious threat to our state, our nation, it is a blow to russia, a blow to our people and our actions to defend the state against this threat will be harsh. Those who consciously chose treason, blackmail and terrorist methods will be inevitably punished. They will answer before the law and before our people. The armed forces and other state authorities have received necessary orders, additional measures of Anti Terrorist nature are now enforced in moscow and other regions. Resolute action will be taken to stabilise the situation in rostov on don, it remains difficult, in fact, the government and military administrations have been blocked. As the president of russia and the Supreme Commander and chief, as a citizen is russia, i shall do everything to defend the country, to defend the constitutional system, life and security and the freedom of people, those who organised and prepared the armed mutiny, those who took up arms against their comrades have betrayed russia and will answer for it. Lets bring you more of that strong disagreement between the wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and key members of the russian military. The wagner group has released video showing a heated argument in rostov on don between prigozhin and the Deputy Defense minister yevkurov. Take a listen. They shoot at us and we shoot them down. You shot one down . We brought one down. A third one, two. It will bring down all of them if you keep sending them because youre hurting innocent civilians. You are destroying civilians. You just blew up destroying civilians. You just blew up a pass with people in it and you have no conscience about it. Well, this is the first time hearing about it. All of it. Once again, we came here. We want to get the head of the general staff. So long as they are not here we are remain here blocking the city of rostov on don and we will head for moscow. Ok. Then i ask you to release the regular soldiers from the headquarters. No. No way, guys. We are staying here. You see, because when. Guys. We are staying here. You see, because when. No, not interrupting you from commanding the trips. Commanding the trips, of course. To get on in places where guys are dying. Guys are dying because you are throwing them into the meat grinder. That is not rhetorical. Guys are dying because youre throwing them into the meat grinder. Without ammunition, without thought, without any plan. Ijust without ammunition, without thought, without any plan. I just want to bring your couple of lines coming into it here. Just hearing that President Putin has held a call with turkeys president ed one who expressed support for the russian leadership. Also getting reports that g7 Foreign Ministers have exchanged views on russia. That is citing a diplomatic chief. There are also hearing that the russian leader has spoken with the turkish leader. Well, earlier,. I asked a professor and author of putins wars from chechnya to ukraine, about the relationship between putin and prigozhin. In some ways the sense of distance is precisely because of the close proximity. We have got to understand that Yevgeny Prigozhin is essentially putins invention, his creation, from when he was a restaurateur in the 19905 in st petersburg, to the present day. His trajectory has been facilitated by putin. He regarded him as a useful instrument, whether in terms of trying to disrupt the american elections or running mercenaries. In some ways it is precisely because of this that both people are having to be a little bit more cautious about directly calling out the other. For Yevgeny Prigozhin it would be a nuclear option, and for putin it would be added an embarrassing admission that his creation has turned against him. Is there any chance this is part of efforts by putin and the kremlin, and Yevgeny Prigozhin, to put the focus of blame on the military and detract attention from putin. It would seem if it is, rather braised way of doing it, because intrinsically it does threaten the premiership of putin, it does make him look weak to some degree . I think for that reason we can rule it out. If putin wanted to sack his Defence Minister, his Defence Minister would be sacked. He has both the legal and practical political ability to do that. He can blame defeat on whoever he wants. The chief of general staff, the west, aliens. Whoever. He doesnt need to go through this very dangerous and disruptive move. It is not only that it is affecting the front line, we see wagner withdrawn, there are talks of some of the paratroopers, who are kept in reserve, are being prepared just in case they need to defend moscow and take back rostov. It does disrupt the war effort. But this undermines putins legitimacy within the elite as a whole. For all these reasons it would be an extraordinarily expensive and painfully roundabout way of doing something that is actually simple. If, like you say, President Putin created prigozhin and wagner. How do you go about trying to dismantle this threat that he created in the first place . At the moment we are in a wait and see phase. If anyone looks at the seizure of rostov, the local garrison, the local National Guard force, which is parallel internal security army, they neither resisted wagner, nor have theyjoined wagner. Everyone is worried, waiting for orders from above. No one wants to take initiative, this is not how the system works. When it comes down to it i suspect that will i suspect that well see this essentially turn into a siege, that rostov will become besieged, and they will try to negotiate Yevgeny Prigozhin� s surrender to the authorities. Whether he will be willing to go quietly, way mill may be another quietly, may be another matter. That is plan a. Using Military Force would be further down the list of options they would like to take. Talks about the other leaders of state putin has access to . We have to realise that in many ways Yevgeny Prigozhin is in a weak position. He claims 25,000 troops. Yevgeny prigozhin claims a lot of things that turn out to be not the case. Maybe worldwide they have that many troops but currently a lot of them are deployed in africa. The real estimate for his figures in russia and ukraine were closer to 10,000. That is set against a whole parallel series of armies. His only real chance is that if there are major defections from the other forces to him. This is, i think, where the other agencies come in. Groups like the federal Security Service that you mentioned, which will be desperately looking for any signs of the soldiers getting together and saying, maybe Yevgeny Prigozhin has a point, or the National Guard, this parallel alternative army, which will be looking to try to close routes, so that even if small groups of soldiers want to desert to wagners site, they cant get to rostov. I think what we are beginning to see it as a whole panoply of what is, after all, an authoritarian police state, being mobilised to try to block off wagner, rather than actually, at this stage, to Take Wagner On Face To face. Wagner has been crucial in russias full scale operation on ukraine. It spent months grinding down forces and trying to capture bakhmut. What does this latest situation in russia mean for ukraine . I think it is not going to be decisive, but it does help the Russian War Effort Wagner has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. At its peak it had about 50,000 troops, many of those recruited from russias labour camps. Most of those are dead, wounded, and have or have returned to civilian life. Wagner is much smaller. Even if it isjust 10,000 troops, that is 10,000, on the whole, quite well trained, Battle Hardened veterans. They will be reconstituted after the meat grinder of bakhmut. This is so they can be used as reinforcements. Not having wagner is in itself a loss. If other, again of the more professional troops, have to be diverted to deal with wagner even just to bottle it up, every soldier that leaves the theatre for that purpose, is a soldier who is not there to resist the ukrainian counteroffensive. That is one of the many reasons why putin is so clearly and visibly angry at what he sees as betrayal. A lot of focus on the situation in russia but lets turn our attention to ukraine itself. Meanwhile, three people have died in the ukrainian capital, kyiv, after a 25 Storey Residential Building was partially destroyed in what authorities have described as a Powerful Night Attack of russian missiles across ukraine. The bbc� s mayeni jones has the latest. When the air strike happened, it was the middle of the night, and lots of people were fast asleep and they describe feeling confused, waking up to a loud explosion to see smoke all over the apartments. A lot of them live with children. These apartments are brand new. A lot of young families live here. They grabbed their kids. They ran downstairs. And then they described seeing their cars covered in dust and debris. They said they immediately knew that was some sort of air strike. Now the authorities are busy cleaning up. Neighbours are also trying to recover some of their belongings. Were being told that the building is not structurally safe so the public isnt allowed inside, but they are concerned some people may be stuck in the rubble. So a Rescue Operation is under way. Missile strikes are common here in kyiv. Air raid sirens can be heard almost every night. But a lot of the conflicts, the reality of it, the violence of it, feels quite far away. The front line is in the south and in the east of the country. But for the residents of this neighbourhood, the violence came right up to their doorstep today. Christopher steele is a former mi6 officer who worked as head of the russia desk. He gave me his assessment of the situation and the damage it could do to Vladimir Putin. Clearly, this is the biggest threat to putins system and government since he came to power in 2000. And i think only Vladimir Putin has got himself to blame for this. Hes created a system, in particular in setting up prigozhin as a sort of frankensteins monster, which has got out of control. And one of his techniques for keeping in power, has been to divide the people below him, keep them in tension and in conflict with each other, and to sit on top of it. And, of course, this is now exploded really in his face. And i think that russia has become a pretty ungovernable, dysfunctional place in the last few years. And now the chickens are coming home to roost. You monitored russia from an external perspective for several years. For mi6. We have seen comments from poland, from france as well, that the leaders of those countries are monitoring developments. Just give us a bit of insight. How do foreign nations monitor these fast moving events and what information, what key issues will they be looking out for . Its actually very difficult to monitor these kind of events. I was, in fact, in moscow, in the embassy in 1991 when the last event of this sort happened, and in fact, an attempt by a sort of right wing nationalist element to launch a coup against the regime. I think all you can do, really, is try and monitor things, communications, what you see and i think the difference may be now is that you have things like social media and so on, where people are posting films and videos and information in a much more sort of real time method. Intelligence in this situation is difficult. Its difficult to get a grip on a fast moving situation from traditional methods of intelligence. Based on what we do know and what we are seeing at the moment. What do you think this will play out as . What do you think the next stages of this are going to be . I dont think we know, to be honest. I mean, i do get the more and more the feeling here of what happened in 1991. And i think that the Russian Federation itself is very weak in many ways. And what is clear here, what is really significant here, i think two things. One is that prigozhin doesnt seem to be coming up against much opposition. Theres even talk of him having taken the second city. And the second is actually very interesting, which is hes called out the false mandate that caused this war, that putin claimed that ukraine was being run by nazis, posed a Military Threat to russia, as did nato. What prigozhin has done is hes called it out as a lie, and that really does threaten, i think, the whole sort of putin system now, which has been creaking ever since this war started because of the failures of Russian Troops on the ground and the false nature of this war and the prospects of it. You mentioned the war there. Of course, there is the ongoing conflict in ukraine. Were talking about events that are taking place in russia for its part. How do you think kyiv responds to this and how do you think it may be utilizes this disunity within russia to potentially make progress in its counteroffensive . But when you consider that possibly one in four russian front line fighters are from wagner or have been from wagner, and that the only claimable success in the war in the last year really has been achieved by wagner forces in back mode. Clearly, theres a risk here of fighting, breaking out between Russian Regular troops and wagner troops, both in ukraine and inside russia. This is a massive boost, i think, for the ukrainian Counter Offensive for ukrainian morale. And we could see some very dramatic developments, i think, in the next week or so. To explain more on who the wagner group is and their leader heres our analysis editor ros atkins. The wagner group has fought in some of the war� s fiercest battles, including bakhmut, and its lost many men. This is Prigozhin Laying Flowers at his fighters� graves earlier this year. The us estimates that around 10,000 wagnerfighters have died in ukraine since december and the majority of those men were russian convicts. Heres prigozhin at a prison last september. He is telling these men their sentences will be quashed if they fight for wagner. Many of them went to war and as wagners death toll has spiralled, prigozhin� s relationship with the Russian Defence ministry had deteriorated. Hes posted furious rants on the messaging app telegram and in early may, surrounded by corpses of his fighters, he took aim again. Shoigu is russias Defence Minister. Gerasimov is the head of the armed forces. And prigozhin has a reputation for this kind of furious outburst and also brutality, for example this was his reaction when in november, a wagner defector was allegedly killed with a sledgehammer. Yevgeny prigozhin said a dog meets a dogs death. He did not condemn it. He then began to use the image of a sledgehammer as a trophy image. And prigozhin� s lawlessness is nothing new. In 1981 he was sent to prison for robbery and theft. When released in 1990, he became a Hot Dog Salesman in saint petersburg, but by 1997, he was running a top restaurant and began winning lucrative catering contracts. These brought connections to the very top. Prigozhin catered for state visits and personally served World Leaders including us president George W Bush in 2006, or heres putin being shown round prigozhin� s School Lunch Factory in 2010, or being served by prigozhin a year later. And in time, Yevgeny Prigozhin� s role would become about far more than food. He had his shift here from hot dog seller, to restaurateur, to caterer to the army, massive contract, and at some point he then moved closer to the armed forces. That point was explicitly reached in early 2014. Russia invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in ukraine. It also launched an insurgency to occupied parts of Eastern Ukraine and prigozhin was involved. He told us as much last year, saying. That statement was important. Before then, prigozhin had always denied any connection with wagner. In fact though, as one think tank documented. And what started in ukraine soon reached far beyond it. These are wagner fighters in syria supporting pro government forces, as russias military was doing too. There are also multiple reports of wagner activity in africa, including libya, mali, the Central African republic, sudan, mozambique, and madagascar, and its activities are varied. Wagner has all types of activities they engage in in sub saharan africa, especially thats security, weapons provision, training, Natural Resource extraction. They kind of run the gamut. This is all highly lucrative, for example politico reports that. These activities are not just lucrative, the eu accuses wagner of. If thats the eu, this is the us. They threaten stability, they undermine good governance, they rob countries of mineral wealth, they violate human rights. And Antony Blinken directly connects this to prigozhin. We have seen Disinformation Campaigns that are furthering the exploitative goals that wagner and its founder have quite literally crossed the continent of africa. And these Disinformation Campaigns are possible because prigozhin has an online operation too. It is best known for meddling in the 2016 us president ial election. Hundreds of young people who are acting as trolls, taking on fake personas, going on to the internet, influencing the election process, particularly in the united states, and Yevgeny Prigozhin has admitted this. And one crucial question in all of this is whether there is any Dividing Line at all between prigozhin and the russian state. In 2020, a Joint Investigation by bellingcat, the insider and der spiegel concluded that. There are other documented links between wagner and russian intelligence. For example, multiple reports show how they shared a base in molkino in southern russia. Vladimir putins never addressed the connection between wagner and the russian state but we know that prigozhin� s operations Around The World allow putin to exert influence at arms length. Were just hearing that the Security Council of belarus has that minsk remains an ally of russia and that the internal disputes were a gift to the internal disputes were a gift to the collective west. I would just want to show you some of the most dramatic images have received in the last hour or so. This is the town between rostov on don and moscow. That helicopter flying there. The Hearing Reports from the voyager news agency of a column of troops have been fired upon. You can also follow the developments on our website. We didnt see a first day over 25 celsius until the end of may but he made up for it to thisjune. Take a look at heathrow and aviemore. 1a days thisjune, the record is actually 17. Aviemore already gone above the previous record of seven by two days and there is still a chance for both those figures to go higher this weekend as we join the Humid Airfrom the higher this weekend as we join the humid air from the south ahead of fresh conditions by these Weather Fronts which will bring a change by change by sunday. By the west of today, still a bit of cloud for some of you. Low cloud around western coasts. A few showers, sharp ones. Isolated once most will be dry with some sunny spell so looking good and pretty hot and humid. 25 to 29 degrees set against an average of what should be 17 21. There is daytime averages, well, they will be close to tonight across the country. Temperatures not dropping much lower than 15 17 across most parts of the uk. A very humid and uncomfortable night and starting sunday. A change in the way. This is the weather system. Once it goes to the weather system. Once it goes to the fresher atlantic air starts to push its way in. It will bring heavy downpours in ireland, scotland, Northern England and wales. A few isolated some thunderstorms before that arrives and heavy showers in Northern Ireland but for the first south of england and wales the chance of a showers only a very small one. Dry, hotand humid towards the south and east. 31, 30 two celsius. Much more comfortable in scotland. That more comfortable air will push through. Overnight thunderstorms gradually clearing. A lot of sun turn monday. Showers brewing throughout the day. More persistent rain to the west later on. An isolated shower and Sunshine Turning Hazy for england and wales but your temperatures are close to where we should be for the stage in june. The same sort of values we see that the west of the week. Dropping a touch on some western spots. Always drier and warmer the further south you are. Live from london. Live from london. This is bbc news. This is bbc news. Wagner mercinaries seize key sites Wagner Mercinaries seize key sites on the route to moscow on the route to moscow Vladimir Putin says russia Vladimir Putin says russia a blow to our people and our actions is in the midst of an armed mutiny. Is in the midst of an armed mutiny. Translation any internal translation any internal mutiny is a serious mutiny is a serious threat to our state, threat to our state, our our nation, it is a blow to russia, nation, it is a blow to russia, a blow to our people and our actions
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