I mean, david remnick was saying this earlier, he speaks a message he thinks a lot of russians like, and he is probably surrounded by the kinds of people who like those messages, about power, strength ask, brutality and so on. maybe also, he expected more popular support than he got. as i said and as i wrote, you know, it is amazing that nobody was sort of blocking him, but it is also true that, you know, how big a popular movement can you create in russia right now either? i mean, either as a liberal democrat or as a brutal military commander or as putin himself. we re seeing a country where it is almost like people don t care what happens to it. marc polymeropoulos, i m wondering what s happening inside the wagner forces and the russian forces. how do they integrate? does this humiliation of putin seep in and cause problems for putin in the military, given that he is in the middle of a hot war with ukraine that has
Humiliation that he has never experienced in his 19 years ruling. can we truly expect the wagner military forces to integrate with the russian forces, and what are the russian forces thinking at the point? what s the mood of the russian army? are there potential problems brewing there? the things i m watching, number one, is where does prigozhin land? you know, if first prize was to conquer russia and march to moscow, and second prize is you live in belarus, not a really good deal. i m kind of watching what happens within. here is something i learned watching game of thrones. if you go for the king, you better kill the king. right. yevgeny s head, what pillow it sleeps on or what
You hear a lot in moments of crisis like this, as people get careless in their communications and pull out that personal cell phone. so putting it all together, great day in kyiv, terrible day in moscow. yeah. friends of russia are feeling diminished today, i would say. another thing to be watching, jonathan lemire, prigozhin has tapped into a narrative about the war in ukraine among the russian people. there already was concern. russian mothers worried about their sons. these fighters fighting along prisoners. the elite and how their reaction how they re reacting to this. the white house isn t going to get in the middle of this, but how is the white house gaming this out? yeah, well, to the admiral s point, u.s. intelligence picked up in recent weeks the growing dissatisfaction, the stress, the tension between the wagner group and the russian military of defrens. defense.
Answer to that question. but one interpretation of the way putin is approaching this in his most recent speech is that he s really fixed not on the political dealings with prigozhin. he s fixed on the battlefield in ukraine where the events of the weekend undoubtedly caused some disorder and disarray, may have had an effect on morale. we just don t know. but one way to regain power and respect and authority for putin would be some better russian performance on the battlefield in ukraine. i think that s where his highest risk. i might just note one thing. for some time now, people have been using the figure of 25,000 wagner forces being in russia and ukraine. that s certainly what prigozhin says. but the british press has been reporting yesterday and today that british intelligence says that total wagner forces in country are about 8,000. now, i don t know what the right figure. but that s a pretty big difference. and the idea that 8,000 wagner
Wings. i don t expect that he will go silently into the night given how loud of a figure he s been. definitely seeing what his next move is. but is there i see the theory that either the kremlin or the m ministry of defense wanted to break up wagner, that that is what this is about and ultimately haven t they achieved that by effectively bringing wagner fighters into the military? i think it is too early to really tell what they have been able to accomplish. there is a couple things we need to know. first of all, prigozhin s wagner group is in many ways are made up of criminal elements, people begin amnesty to fight in ukraine, fight for the wagner mercenary group and then given amnesty from prison. what happens to those criminal elements, can they easily be co-opted into the russian army. and again, throughout the last few month, we ve seen prigozhin