translation: 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. a large explosion in voronezh. reports say a russian helicopter has fired at a convoy of wagner military vehicles heading toward moscow. so this is a developing situation — let's take a look at what we know so far — following the dramatic escalation of infighting. we will remind you of what we know so far following that dramatic escalation in infighting. prigozhin says his forces have taken the city of rostov — and have seized military facilities in voroneszh — which is on the eway

to moscow — as well. there's increased security in moscow — with what's being called anti—terror measures. the m4 motorway — 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. here's mr putin's television address to the russian nation. translation: russia is engaged in a fight for its future. the entire

military information might have the worst has been sent against us. we are fighting for our independence. we are fighting for our right to remain russia. a country with 1000 years of history. today, the fate of our people is being decided. we need the consolidation of all forces. everything has to be discarded that weakens us. anything that can be used and is being used to subvert us from within, therefore, any action set to splitters is 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, a victory were 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, there was tragedy, russians 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 cause for which the soldiers of the wagner group are fighting... those who liberated villages and towns, they fought and gave their lives for new russia. giving their lives and this is the betrayal by those who are pushing the country to anarchy and fratricide. defeat, ultimately, and capitulation. 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. our blow to russia, a blow to our people. 0uractions blow to russia, a blow to our people. our actions to defend the state against this threat will be harsh. those who consciously chose

treason, blackmailand 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 the necessary orders, additional measures of an anti—terrorist nature are now in force in moscow and other regions. 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—in—chief, as a citizen of 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 end mutiny, those who

took up arms against their comrades have betrayed russia and will answer for it. those who are being drawn into this crime, i urge them not to make this irrevocable mistake, and stop taking part in the crime. i am sure that we will preserve and defend everything that is sacred to us and to motivate with our motherland we will overcome any trails and will be even stronger. that was president vladimir putin speaking earlier. live now to francis scarr, who is an expert in following russian state tv for our bbc monitoring team. how is russian media covering the story? how is russian media covering the sto ? ~ , , , ., story? well, the first signs that we saw that anything _ story? well, the first signs that we saw that anything was _

story? well, the first signs that we saw that anything was up _ story? well, the first signs that we saw that anything was up on - story? well, the first signs that we | saw that anything was up on russian state tv was last night when one of the lead anchors for channel one was reporting to the studio presumably out of bed at about 1:30am to make an emergency news bulletin on tv. and she did what russian state tv always does when there is a sense of crisis, which isjust a repeat almost of a date kremlin is saying and what are the russian defence ministry was saying. we saw the kremlin last night saying that putin was aware of the situation and the necessary measures were being taken. it wasn't until this morning when putin himself gave that address which we have just heard, and since then, i think you could say that we have seen attempts to reassure the russian population that things aren't as frightening and as shocking as they might seem. there was a correspondent speaking from rostov the city in southern russia where things are unfolding today, and she was speaking to passers—by

and she was speaking to passers—by and asking them what was happening and asking them what was happening and they were telling her that things were pretty much fine. that they had seen these russian soldiers from the wagner group on the streets but there wasn't any kind of violence and that of the situation was calm. i think that is the message that of the russian state tv is trying to put across to the population today.— is trying to put across to the population today. lets turn to social media, _ population today. lets turn to social media, we _ population today. lets turn to social media, we have - population today. lets turn to social media, we have seen . population today. lets turn to - social media, we have seen prigozhin using telegraph, what have members of the russian social elite been saying and why does what they say matter? ~ , ,., ., matter? well, it is important because so — matter? well, it is important because so far _ matter? well, it is important because so far we _ matter? well, it is important because so far we haven't - matter? well, it is important i because so far we haven't really seen anyone come out in support of prigozhin and this so—called match ofjustice. all the armed mutiny which is what the kremlin is calling it. we have seen figures like the speakers of both of the upper and lower houses of parliament coming out in support of putin, saying that they are firmly behind him and that this is an act of betrayal by prigozhin. we have all also seen the

leader of chechnya, and that is quite significant because he has also been seen in the last year or so over the course of the war is quite an autonomous figure who has its own troops. someone who could particularly play a role in some kind of internal strife, were it to emerge, as it seems to be now. and even state media figures, people on state tv who are not broadcasting today because it is the weekend, they are taking to social media and also calling for prigozhin to stop and coming out in support of the president. , , , ., ., ., and coming out in support of the president. , , ., ., ., ., president. just before we move on to the latest line — president. just before we move on to the latest line concerning _ president. just before we move onto the latest line concerning martial- the latest line concerning martial law, just how closely do russians follow telegraph? law, just how closely do russians follow telegraph ?_ follow telegraph? well, it is very --oular, follow telegraph? well, it is very popular, telegram, _ follow telegraph? well, it is very popular, telegram, the - follow telegraph? well, it is very popular, telegram, the social - popular, telegram, the social network. especially since the war started, it has become increasingly popular with all the censorship that we see on state tv and also on other

parts of the media in russia, independentjournalist had been driven out of the country and it is one of the few places where russians can get any kind of genuine idea about what is going on. of course, there is also... it comes with the caveat that there is a lot of disinformation on telegram, especially with videos and photos circulating, you have to verify where there have come from or if they are actually new. some of these figures who have been reporting on the war, the so—called military bloggers and war correspondents, telegram has been their main platform and it has been the same for prigozhin as well. it has been the platform he has used a insult to the platform he has used a insult to the military leadership over the last few months. where he has recorded these angry rants and tirades. where he has targeted his higher at them. of course, the new development is that he has used it to target president putin himself. i to target president putin himself. i wonder if you could add a bit more context, please, to the announcement

that the russian president vladimir putin has signed a law permitting a 30 day detention is for breaking martial law in places where it's been imposed. where is that? well. been imposed. where is that? well, it's nowhere — been imposed. where is that? well, it's nowhere at _ been imposed. where is that? well, it's nowhere at the _ been imposed. where is that? well, it's nowhere at the moment. - been imposed. where is that? m it's nowhere at the moment. which is quite interesting because it seems it is some kind of preparatory measure for something that comes later. since the invasion, the kremlin has taken pains to almost play down the significance of what it is doing, calling it a special military operation rather than actually declaring war, which it is yet to be one ukraine. and now we are seeing that this has actually become such a threat to putin that he is taking it so seriously that he is taking measures. we are seeing other measures as well. prigozhin is also known for his media empire, he has lots of websites, he was accused of interfering in the us election in 2016 with his so—called trolley farm

and the russian state media regulator in the last few hours has announced that it has blocked his websites in russia and many of the social media groups linked to him. so what we're really seeing is the imposition of measures across the board to clampdown on what is happening. board to clampdown on what is happening-— board to clampdown on what is haueninu. . , . ., happening. thank you very much for that. to explain more — on who the wagner group is — and their leader — here's our analysis editor ros atkins. the wagner group has fought in some of the war�*s fiercest battles, including bakhmut, and it's 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. here's 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 wagner's death toll has spiralled, prigozhin's relationship with the russian defence ministry had deteriorated.

he's posted furious rants on the messaging app telegram and in early may, surrounded by corpses of his fighters, he took aim again. shoigu is russia's 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 dog's 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 here's 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 russia's 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 that's 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 that's 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 presidential 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 putin's 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 arm's length. let's 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. take a listen. translation: they shoot at us, and we shoot them down. - you shot one down? we brought one down, a third one too. and we will bring down all of them if you keep sending them. because you are hitting innocent civilians. you are destroying civilians. you just blew up a bus with people in it. and you have no conscience about it. well, this is the first i'm hearing of 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 remaining here, blocking the city of rostov 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... no, i'm not interrupting you from commanding troops.

commanding the troops, of course. we shouldn't get in where guys are dying. guys are dying because you are throwing them into the meat grinder. that is not rhetorical. guys are dying because you are throwing them into the meat grinder without ammunition, without thought, without any plans. you are just senile clowns. this video was shared earlier today on an account linked to prigozhin. he denies that wagner group has caused things to crumble. the main commanding _ caused things to crumble. the main commanding centre _ caused things to crumble. the main commanding centre is _ caused things to crumble. the main commanding centre is functioning i caused things to crumble. the main | commanding centre is functioning as normal. there are not any problems at all. not one officer has been pried away from their works are when they tell you the private military company wagner has obstructed the work of the army which resulted in things crumbling on the front, things crumbling on the front, things will not crumble on the front because of this. when we came here, we reconfirmed a lot of new things.

a huge amount of territories have been lost, soldiers have been killed, three, four times more than what it says in documents shown to the top leadership. daily sanitary losses go up to 1000 people on some days. those are killed, missing, winded and those who refuse and not because they are scared but because they have no choice, no ammunition, no control. —— missing, wounded. the chief of general staff ran away from him when he found out we were approaching the building. earlier my colleague, gareth barlow, asked professor mark galeotti about the relationship between putin and prigozhin. i mean, if one looks at for example the seizure of rostov—on—don, the local garrison, the local national guard force, which is a sort of parallel

internal security army, they neither resisted wagner, nor have theyjoined wagner. i think everyone is worried, waiting for orders from above. no one wants to take initiative, that's not the way this kind of system works. when it comes down to it i suspect that we'll see this essentially turn into a siege, that rostov—on—don will be in effect besieged, and they will try to negotiate yevgeny prigozhin's surrender to the authorities. whether he will be willing to go quietly, may well may be another matter. but i think that's as it were the authorities' plan a. using actual military force would be very much further down their list of options they would like to take. talk to us about the other levers of state putin has access to, because it is notjust the military like we mentioned, but organisations like the fsb, the security service for example? yes, we have to realise that in many ways prigozhin at present is in a very weak position. look, he claims 25,000 troops. prigozhin claims a lot of things that then turn out to be not the case. maybe wagner worldwide has 25,000 troops but a lot of those are currently deployed in africa in various mercenary operations. the real estimate for his figures

in russia and ukraine were closer to 10,000. that's set against a huge armed forces and 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, the fsb, which will be desperately looking for any signs of other soldiers getting together and saying maybe prigozhin has a point, or the national guard, this parallel alternative army, which will again be looking to try to close routes, so that even if small groups of soldiers do want to desert to wagner's site, they can't get to rostov. so i think what we are beginning to see is a whole kind of panoply of what is, after all, an authoritarian police state, being mobilised to try and block off wagner, rather than actually, at this stage, to try and take wagner on face—to—face. wagner has been crucial in russia's full—scale military invasion of ukraine.

it spent months grinding down its own forces but also those of kyiv to finally capture bakhmut. although there is some progression by ukrainian forces in and around bakhmut now. what does this latest situation in russia mean for the war in ukraine? i think it is not going to be decisive, but it absolutely does not help the russian war effort. wagner had been reduced to a shadow of its former self. at peak it had about 50,000 troops, many of those recruited from russia's labour camps. most of those are dead, wounded, or just simply returned to civilian life. as i say, wagner itself is much smaller. but none the less, even if it isjust10,000 troops, that is 10,000 on the whole quite well—trained, battle—hardened veterans. and i think they were being held back, they were being reconstituted after the meat grinder of bakhmut, so that they can be used as reinforcements,

in case the ukrainians, in the course of the counteroffensive, managed to start punching through the main russian defensive lines. so not having wagner is in itself a loss. but also if other again of the more professional troops have to be diverted to deal with wagner, even just to bottle it up, well, every soldier that leaves the theatre for that purpose is a soldier who is not there to resist the ukrainian counteroffensive. so that is one of the many reasons why putin is so clearly and visibly angry at this as he sees it betrayal. mikhail khodorkovsky — a former russian oil tycoon and political prisoner of vladimir putin's regime — has told the bbc that he will support prigozhin. and calls all anti—war russians to do the same. translation: the enemy of my enemy is my situational— translation: the enemy of my enemy is my situational friend. _ translation: the enemy of my enemy is my situational friend. whatever - is my situationalfriend. whatever prigozhin is doing now is weakening putin's resume and it is a positive

thing, no matter what. and other politicians are deciding to keep their hands clean and say that prigozhin is the most awful man. an awful man he is, i will not forget that he killed three of our journalists in the central african republic. he is a man with a mallet as his symbol. but the civil war circumstances demand, and i'm convinced that civil war in russia is ongoing, it hasjust convinced that civil war in russia is ongoing, it has just now moved to a hot active stage. not using allies during the civil war, even when they were enemies, is unacceptable and fussy. were enemies, is unacceptable and fuss . ., ., ., . “ , our world affairs editor john simpson gave his analysis of today's events. i think the one word that describes it best is the word that in fact

vladimir putin used, it is a mutiny. but you have to remember it is a mutiny by probably the most effective section of the entire russian military operation. the wagner group, russian military operation. the wagnergroup, i russian military operation. the wagner group, i mean, although as we know it is often made up of people like former prisoners and so on, but they have been welded together by prigozhin into this unit which has a very, very high sense of itself and a very, great spirit, they feel they are somebody, whereas the russian forces are often demoralised, mostly do not want to be the. although they have these very good defences at the

moment, they are nervous, they are scared of what the ukrainian military cannot do to them, and so they do not have that kind of spirit that the prigozhin people do. —— what the ukrainian military can do to them. there's only 25,000 of the wagner group but they may well be able to get much further than they have got already. it was really unwise of putin to allow prigozhin to have the kind of scope that he has had. i think it was really unwise of him rarely to allow prigozhin to get deeply into this violent argument that he has with shoigu, the war minister, and gerasimov, the head of the russian armed forces. as things stand, even

now, putin is angrilyjoining in the row, but prigozhin is restricting it to shoigu and gerasimov because he row, but prigozhin is restricting it to shoigu and gerasimov feels he thinks they have organised the whole thing badly, he has the relationship still with putin which i imagine he does not want tojust completely throw out at this stage, so he is saying to shoigu, to gerasimov, to the others, you come and meet me. i'm not sure that they would, frankly, but that is the level where it is at the moment. the next stage could be quite close, where it is just between prigozhin and peter. the other thing that is really important to make is prigozhin has spent a lot of time on

the front line. —— between prigozhin our but prigozhin is restricting it and putin. he does not sit back like shoigu does for instance. sit way back and send out his orders, he likes to be right up there with his man. he identifies... live from london. this is bbc news. vladimir putin says russia is facing a battle for its future in the face of what he called an "armed mutiny" in the country. translation: any internal mutiny is a serious threat to our state,