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a good sunday evening to you. i'm jim sciutto, and this is cnn's special live coverage of the extraordinary events this weekend out of russia. moscow's red square blocked off again today after the brief but stunning insurrection that's gripped the world, could perhaps weaken vladimir putin's grip on his country. we should note it's far too soon to know. so much we don't know about what led wagner mercenary group leader yevgeny prigozhin to launch a march on moscow and what convinced him to abruptly call it off. and then, it's said, go into exile. u.s. secretary of state tony blinken today called the whole series of events extraordinary, believes it indicates that cracks are emerging in putin's

rule. the very latest now from cnn's sam kiley live from london. sam, we're watching russia closely, ukraine, also events in belarus. any developments to indicate to us what's actually happening right now? >> reporter: well, jim, i think the most stunning development so far is an absence of any kind of news about the whereabouts of yevgeny prigozhin, the leader of the wagner mercenary group. as you rightly point out there, he was in command of, although not present in, necessarily, a column of military, his military that got within 200 kilometers, 125 miles of moscow, and then suddenly there was this intervention from lukashenko from belarus. and we saw pictures of the mercenary leader leaving rostov-on-don, ostensibly for exile and safety, critically, in neighboring belarus whilst his

troops were again, as part of this deal, sent back or returned themselves to their camps inside occupied ukraine. but we haven't seen any evidence that he's turned up in belarus. my own speculation is he might choose to go somewhere a bit safer, a bit further away from the reach of vladimir putin's intelligence services to some of the places in africa, central african republic or libya, where his mercenary group has a footprint. but the future of the mercenary group itself, of course, remains in question now, as indeed does the coherence of the russian military effort inside ukraine because what he said at the beginning of that coup attempt, as he said it wasn't in a weird way, even though he was marching on the russian capital, he said was not committing a coup but actually trying to rid the country of the military leadership. but he did say that vladimir putin's reasons for invading

ukraine, specifically because of the threat posed by nato, were invalid. and that's something he's going to really struggle to recover from, jim. >> that is a genie you can't put back in the bottle. question about vladimir putin. he was public in the midst of this, making a national address in which he accused prigozhin of treason. he's been largely invisible since. do we have any idea where he is? >> reporter: that's the other guy in this drama who's absent from the stage. you rightly point out there he was not only present, but he went on-air, on television, accusing prigozhin and his men of treason and treachery and saying they would face the full force of the law. now there has been this deal, we think, ostensibly negotiated by the belarusian president, that gets him off that hook. but we haven't heard from vladimir putin since he made

those allegations. of course that leaves him, in terms of public perception in russia, i think potentially very weakened, jim. >> sam kiley, we know you're going to keep trying to answer these questions. joining us now major general james "spider" marks. good to have you on, sir. >> thank you, jim. >> it was over quickly, but during that short time period, he was able -- prigozhin -- to take rostov-on-don, which is the key center for logistics, command and control to the war in ukraine, and travel all the way up to here, close to moscow. how does he do that, and what does that mean not just putin's control over the country but the russian military's control over the country? they barely seemed to challenge him. >> also bear in mind wagner had a very strong footprint in here and elsewhere in the region obviously. the borders right here, they were able to come across. the wagner group had free movement in and out from russia into ukraine. they used this area,

rostov-on-don, as their logistics base as well. that's where the hub really was located. so for the movement of the wagner group to come across, i don't think that's particularly significant. >> mm-hmm. >> what was significant is this significant movement up to this area, as you indicated, and then you call the thing off entirely. so there's much more at play here. >> this bigger picture in the weeks preceding this, you had drone strikes on moscow and yet a number of attacks across the border by either ukrainian special forces units or russian units disloyal to putin's regime. >> right. >> what does that show you about the control of the country because it raises questions about control at the border, air defense systems, a whole list of defenses? >> what you're looking at is who controls the border? does the military control the border, sore there some other border force? does the fsb, does the gru? how do those organizations communicate among each other to

assure there is some type of control. the ukrainians have, with great success, been able to attack at logistics sites across the border since the war has begun, and that has increased. then as you've indicated, we've seen some incursions that have come across. we're still not sure exactly who they were. >> one thing we know, and this hasn't changed, is that in ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive, russia has multiple lines of defense, and those are dug-in positions, and ch they're protected by mine fields and tank traps. those didn't didn't appear overnight. is this an opportunity for ukrainian forces? would they see weaknesses today that they didn't see two days ago? >> they might absolutely. but what the ukrainians need to do is they need to stay focused. they need to fight the plan on the ground. >> jim clapper just said exactly that, stick to the plan. >> absolutely. don't do what putin did, which

was to underestimate your enemy and overestimate your own capabilities and maybe an opportunity. so the ukrainians need to stay extremely focused. this is like the hedge rows in normandy after the landings. >> fight hedge row by hedge row. >> 50 yards by 50 yards. the only way to get through it is to pop your head up and become a target. this is not dissimilar from that. the ukrainians have to be very aggressive with their intelligence collection and their maneuvers. >> they're claiming some success although not massive success in the last 24, 48 hours. okay. belarus here. by the way, this is a story, so i'm applying it with a grain of salt. the idea is that prigozhin is now up here, and some of his forces now up here in belarus. what's the significance of that? >> i don't -- my view is that lukashenko got involved because putin told him, make this a safe haven temporarily. we still don't know where prigozhin is located.

>> is that a safe haven? belarus is basically -- >> it's a vassal state. well, it's a vassal state of russia. it's at least a temporary way station, right? he could leave. prigozhin could depart and rejoin his wagner forces elsewhere. they're in yemen. they're in syria. they're in africa. >> they're in ukraine. >> they are in ukraine. i don't know how that's going to work when you've got the military force, which is the russian military force, which has clearly demonstrated its incompetence. how will wagner force integrate itself into the russian force? i find that a very, very difficult task. >> with a question about who's actually running things. major general spider marx, thanks so much as always. president biden is back at the white house after spending a working weekend at camp david. he remained largely silent publicly on the rebellion in russia, but the white house says he spoke with ukraine's president zelenskyy privately earlier as well as canada's

prime minister as part of his close coordination with allies following the events in russia. for more, cnn's jeff zeleny is live at the white house. do they have a plan going forward for what to do about this and to answer the unanswered questions about what's going on in russia? >> reporter: jim, first and foremost, the plan clearly over the weekend was this above all torks avoid any implication of western interference in the extraordinary events in russia. that was a theme, we are told, of conversations that president biden had with all of his western allies from the united kingdom to france to germany to canada and, indeed, in that conversation with ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy where president biden offered unwavering support of ukraine and its people. but it was the trying to avoid any sense of western interference with what's going on in russia which really was the focus of this administration over the weekend. now, jim, there's no doubt that vladimir putin has been in power

for 23 years, dealt with four american presidents from bush to obama to trump to biden. this certainly presents the biggest foreign policy challenges as his power is questioned and, indeed, threatened. but as this week begins, at least as of now, there is nothing on the schedule tomorrow for the president to address this. he certainly will be asked questions about this. but officials say that the president simply wants to sort of stay out of this and keep this inside russia. but there is no doubt that this is a geopolitical challenge, a foreign policy challenge for this administration and all western allies. and there simply is not a roadmap. there is not a plan. there is so much information they do not yet have. this, of course, begins yet another challenge on his plate when the president awakes tomorrow here at the white house, jim. certainly, again, there is no roadmap for what's ahead for the u.s. >> no question. jeff zeleny at the white house, thanks so much. just as remarkable as the

36-hour insurrection we witnessed this weekend is how desperately the kremlin is trying to project an image that all is normal. the wreckage of russian helicopters and russian military jets tell a different story even as the wreckage smolders, this is a reality that was inconceivable in putin's russia for much of the last two decades. here to help us make sense of this all, russia policy expert as well as "washington post" columnist. we have to start with a dose of humility here because even the most informed intelligence analysts right now don't have the full picture of what's going on in russia. dmitry, you have a number of years of experience watching events in russia. first question is, is putin's leadership, is his power damaged here going forward? >> i think there's no question, jim, that putin is dramatically weakened here. however, i don't think that he's

in danger of losing his president anytime soon. but what he is in danger of is losing relevancy. the reality is everyone right now in russia, all the elites, whether you're a governor somewhere, whether you're in the security forces, whether you're a general, you're looking at prigozhin challenging putin and, so far at least, getting away with it. you should be asking yourself the question, what can i get away with to enrich myself, to gain myself more power? do i really need to ask the kremlin for permission anytime i try to do something? so you may have a def lusion into chaos here over time in russia. >> well, in the midst of this, putin accused him of treason, the highest crime, called these terrorist acts and then a deal was struck. >> and now all is forgiven. >> we'll see going forward. but that's quite a shift in the span of just a number of hours. you had will hurd running for the gop nomination say that the biden administration missed an opportunity here to act in some way, not entirely clear how, to

take advantage of this more, perhaps push ukraine to push harder in their counteroffensive, et cetera. but the white house seems to have made the opposition decision. first of all, they don't have the power to control events is their perception, but they don't want to be seen as owning this. is that a debate taking place inside the administration at all? >> i'm not so sure. i think what this episode shows us, and we should see it as the latest indication of the disaster of the ukraine war for this russian regime. we saw, you know, it was so far away from the delusion of the de-nazification, special military operation. we've now seen the russians get stuck fighting ukrainians, the russians now fighting essentially the west as well to a certain extent. and now the russians are fighting the russians, and this weekend has kind of really hammered home what a disaster this has been for putin.

>> listen, it's another reminder that you have multiple factions in russia with their own armies in effect. wagner is not the only running militia there. gazprom has its own militia. one of the most notable comments from prigozhin, dmitri, was not just his direct challenge to putin's power, but he blew up putin's justification for war in ukraine. he said what they've been saying isn't twrue. this isn't a battle to denazify ukraine. how much has that damaged public support or just the justification for the war from putin's perspective? >> i'm not sure it matters that much because for the past nine months, prigozhin has been the guy fighting this war. he's been calling for more aggressive actions. he said this is now an existential war for russia. he think this was a part of his plan to try to undermine defense minister shoigu by saying they

were the ones that launched this war under false pretenses. everyone knows it's putin's war. he was responsible for it. perhaps he was thinking he could throw this out there for putin to grab on to as a way to blame. putin came out strongly, very angrily against him. >> is there any sense that ukraine has an opportunity here now? >> i think we have to be careful about that. we've seen how difficult this counteroffensive has been in the last few weeks. we know that they're bogged down on a number of fronts. we know that as much as they're trying to push through with the western equipment they've had, that it's a long road to go. and this doesn't necessarily give them a tactical advantage. yes, we see that there are cracks within the kremlin's capacity for control and projection of authority. but we don't know what actually

inroads ukraine could make. >> putin does not like challengers. putin kills challengers, or he tries to. he'll poison them. he's done it in london. he's done it in his own country, and that goes for individuals like navalny and other russian agents, et cetera. if you go back even in russian history, right, you challenge the leader, the purge follows. as you're looking at russia now, are other heads going to roll? >> well, you'd think so. but on the other hand, putin has never faced a challenger with his own army. and clearly he wanted to crush him. he went on tv ordering his military to crush him, and they didn't. you had a 5,000-troop column driving to moscow. they were within two hours of moscow, and they couldn't stop t them. the fact that he took over southern military district headquarters, which is basically the russian equivalent of

central command, you know, at the time when we're -- >> going into tampa and taking tampa over in the middle of the war. >> with not one shot fired. with the military, the military police and other military units there just standing by, not fleeing, not surrendering, not taking wagner's side, just standing by as wagner rolls in and takes over the headquarters of the unit that is fighting the war in ukraine. that's the nerve center for the coordination of the fight in ukraine. that is what's remarkable. putin, i believe, is losing control right now of his military, over his national guard, and maybe even part of his own security forces. >> those are hard images to forget. the other powerful image from my perspective was seeing public support for wagner in rostov-on-don. you had those crowds out there taking selfies, giving coffee. they were giving snacks to the troops. they were cheering them. we've got some of the pictures up on the screen now. folks have been asking since the start of this war, where does the russian public stand? public polling in russia just not particularly reliable. but the assumption was they're

getting fed so much disinformation, they're still on board, plus fear, plus some genuine admiration for putin and what he's done for russia. were those images powerful to you? does that indicate that that support is less strong than we might have imagined? >> it indicates there are different camps in the country and that there are divisions and intense feelings on various sides that threaten perhaps putin's legitimacy and capacity for authority. i think it's very clear that prigozhin has spent months projecting himself as this figure of the everyman soldier, as this person who can wage a competent war unlike russia's corrupt military leadership. and it behooved him to have that kind of support. now we'll see how this shakes out. there's a lot of palace intrigue to come. we don't know what's going to happen to shoigu, to gerasimov, and we don't know what's going to happen to prigozhin. >> he's image-conscious. those images with his helmet on and flak jacket in the field, those are deliberate attempts to

show he's one of them. stand by. there's much more to discuss. coming up next, he led the insurrection, but how did the leader of wagner group gain power in the first place? his past work -- and its bloody -- of yevgeny prigozhin. plus, as we learn new developments in the implosion of the titan sub tonight, what could be the legal liability for the company? this is cnn's special live coverage. sometimes you're so busy taking care of everyone else you don't do enough for yourself, or your mouth. but eventually, it will remind you. when it does, aspen dental is here for you. we offer the custom dental treatments you need, all under one roof, right nearby.

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earning the nickname putin's chef for his close work with the russian president, which went far beyond food, we should note. but this weekend he became the leader of an open insurrection. who is the head of the wagner mercenary group exactly? cnn's brian todd takes a look. >> reporter: the man recently videotaped screaming at vladimir putin's top military officials for betraying his mercenaries on the battlefield is someone used to the tactic of strong arming, threatening, ruthlessly taking what he wants. wagner group leader yevgeny prigozhin may have won over vladimir putin for displaying those traits rather than the fact that they both hail from the same hometown, st. petersburg. >> i think that prigozhin does have some personality traits that putin not only likes but also, i think, sees in himself. >> reporter: prigozhin's rise is a classic russian tale of brute force ambition. he served time in prison in the final stages of the soviet union for petty crimes.

when he got out, he started a hot dog stand, parlayed that into a series of successful restaurants that putin sometimes brought other world leaders to. prigozhin scored lucrative government catering contracts, earning him the nickname putin's chef. >> being the guy who runs the kremlin food service might to you and me sound like not a particularly important thing. but to people who are afraid of being poisoned, that's a position of trust for prigozhin. >> reporter: prigozhin used putin's trust and resources to make another bold and extraordinary move around 2014, founding wagner as a paramilitary group, then operating mostly in the shadows. >> to run coups and mercenary activities at the central african republic. he was involved in syria. when russia doesn't want to use its own troops, when russia wants to outsource to contractors, it relies on wagner, the most prominent of these kind of institutions.

>> reporter: cnn has tracked wagner mercenaries operating in the central african republic, sudan, libya, mozambique, mali, and syria as well as ukraine. >> prigozhin has by some accounts 25,000 men, many of whom are very battle-hardened. >> reporter: battle-hardened and brutal. human rights groups say wagner, which has recruited murderers and drug dealers from russian prisons to fight, has committed a series of human rights abuses, including allegedly murdering and torturing a -- and executing a wagner fighter who had defected. >> the videos of prigozhin and his people using sledgehammers to maim and kill people, so he understands the value, the propaganda value of coming across as a brutal, almost uncivilized kind of person because that's another kind of power that i think the russian population certainly at least

fears and in some cases respects. >> reporter: one analyst says no matter how this high-stakes drama turns out in the end, that at the very least, yevgeny prigozhin has damaged vladimir putin by openly telling the russian people that the ukraine war was started under fraudulent circumstances. brian todd, cnn, washington. >> big question is, what exactly was prigozhin's goal here? was he aiming to topple putin himself, or did he have lower targets in mind? >> i actually don't believe that this was an attempt to take over power from putin. i think that this goes back to june 10th when shoigu issued this order to dismantle all private military companies in russia, including most promp continently wagner, and to make everyone sign contracts, subsuming them on july 1st. prigozhin said he wasn't going to follow through with this, and he expected putin to take his

side. putin once again did not and said that everyone has to sign contracts with m.o.d. i think this was an attempt to force shoigu to renege on that order, to let prigozhin keep wagner, a very lucrative business by the way, and i think he did not expect putin to come out so strongly against him. he did not expect to get this far before shoigu would capitulate and let him keep wagner. >> so on that goal, if that was his goal, short of toppling the russian president, has prigozhin, to the best of our knowledge at this point, succeeded in that goal, kept wagner as an independent, self-governing group? >> it's impossible to answer that right now. we'll see. and if shoigu is removed in the next day, that will be a sign that he has successfully shaken the trees to a certain extent. i think it's useful to think of this arrangement they have, think of putin as a kind of pre-modern king who has hustled out spheres of influence to favored warlords. in this instance, this one warlord in prigozhin, has

launched a kind of mutiny that has disturbed his allies -- his rivals for putin's throne, but may have still preserved his own position. >> and they are warlords. their own private armies and for money. these are enormous businesses. listen, it lasted perhaps a day, but with enormous military consequences. he was able to take over a major logistical command hub for ukrainian operations in rostov-on-don, drive two-thirds of the way to moscow, and shoot down, it appears, russian aircraft, in other words kill russian forces. those by themselves are significant events. >> at least six helicopters, one plane, as many as 13 pilots dead as a result of this action. and had is what's remarkable. he's getting away it, at least so far. and right now the russian government seems to want to pretend like nothing has happened. in fact, you've seen a complete reversal where for about 24 hours there's been a complete

blackout of wagner. essentially they're being removed from the internet, any mention of them. their offices are being raided. their recruitment posters are being taken down. >> modern air brushing. >> but now it's being reversed where once this deal was struck, now everyone is pretending like nothing happened. in fact, wagner merchandise, which has been sold online for many months now, was taken down. now it's back up and being sold yet again. so i'm not so sure that wagner is going to get dismantled or that prigozhin is going to lose control of wagner. i think part of the deal is he gets to keep it. >> we reported yesterday that u.s. intelligence was aware that prigozhin was making preparations for this in some time. i believe "the washington post" reported the same. that shows a reasonable amount of information-gathering inside russia, an awareness, which we saw, including in advance of the russian invasion of ukraine. do u.s. officials know what's going on there? do they have a decent sense? can they figure out what's going on there?

>> prigozhin has put himself on the radar for some time, basically since last fall when the ukrainians retook kherson and had a lightning campaign through kharkiv. he has been complaining very publicly about his colleagues in the defense ministry. >> in ways that you would think in russia would get you killed, right? i mean folks have suffered worse fates for saying less than he's said. >> he's not had accidents on balconies just yet. to a certain extent, people thought he was getting away with it because putin had to let him get away with it. you couldn't snuff out this nationalist voice in the same way you could snuff out, say, liberal voices. but the fact that he launched this insurrection, this mutiny, this coup, whatever we want to call it, and perhaps we should think about what we call it, suggests that there were seams to exploit and threads to pull. >> best educated guess as to what happens next. where does this go from here? >> i think prigozhin is most

likely to get away with it. i'm not so sure that he's going to disappear into exile in belarus or that he's going to get killed because, look, putin clearly wanted him dead, and he couldn't deliver on that. that is a major sign of weakness, and i think the way that prigozhin survived, he wasn't led out in handcuffs. he left with his force, with his weapons, with his equipment intact while crowds were cheering him, and some of them were even hugging his soldiers in wagner. that was remarkable. he overnight propelled himself to the top of the russian political system. he was not that well known prior to this weekend because he was never covered on television. now his name recognition is off the charts. now everyone has seen that he has confronted the czar, confronted putin, and at least for now gotten away with it. t >> so much to watch. thanks so much to both of you. coming up next, another story we've been following closely. the coast guard now leads the

maritime investigation into the loss of the titan submersible. what exactly it is looking for now. and this just in to cnn. a powerful tornado has torn through the midwest tonight. it was caught on camera. we'll have those pictures coming up. cutting edge innovation... ( ♪ ) ...and thoughtful details..... ...inspired by you. ( ♪ ) from the brand that delivers amazing ownership experiences, this is the first ever, all electric, rz. this is lexus, electrified. oh booking.com,

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take a look at this incredible new video of a tornado seen in johnson county, indiana, just south of indianapolis. the fire chief said there are no reports yet of serious injuries. he added there is roughly a three-mile path of damage, though. at least 75 homes damaged. the fire chief also said the storm took down an apartment complex under construction. severe storms have been ongoing across multiple states, leaving more than 700,000 in the dark this evening. we'll continue to follow. we are just learning as well about a deadly incident at a texas airport. a worker at the san antonio international airport was killed friday night when the worker was, quote -- and i hate to say this -- ingested into a plane's jet engine. the national transportation safety board says a delta flight arriving from los angeles was taxiing to its gate on one

engine when the ground crew member was sucked in, in effect, into that engine. the plane's operator, delta airlines, says they are heartbroken over the incident. the ntsb said it is continuing to gather information about what exactly happened there. well, now an immense and large-scale recovery rescue effort has now turned into a tireless recovery operation. the u.s. coast guard says its biggest priority is to salvage pieces of the titan sub that imploded last week, crucial evidence to figure out exactly what went wrong and whether there could be accountability for those five people who died there. who's responsible? cnn's gloria pazmino has the latest on this international investigation. i wonder how the coast guards and others are framing this now. canadians at least raising the possibility of a criminal investigation. >> reporter: yeah. and as far as we know, jim, what the authorities here have told

us is that this is going to be a multi-country and multi-agency effort. the u.s. coast guard announced today that they have created a marine investigation board, and that is the highest level of investigation that the u.s. coast guard conducts when it comes to marine incidents. now, this is a process, and right now they are in the first phase, which is to collect the evidence. now, we know that pieces of the vessel have been found in recent days, but 400 miles from here, there is a remote operating vehicle called the oh disious 6,000 that has been diving to the bottom of the ocean to find more pieces of evidence, hopefully more pieces of the titan in order to help officials understand what happened here. once they do that, they'll move on to the next step, including gathering more witness testimony and more evidence. eventually they'll have to release a report, and the idea here is to make recommendations,

understand what happened, and make sure it doesn't happen again. listen to officials talking about what's going to happen next. >> during the course of the mbi, the board will first and primarily work to determine the cause of this marine casualty and the five associated deaths. the mbi, however, is also responsible for accountability aspects of the incident, and it can make recommendations to the proper authorities to pursue civil or criminal sanctions as necessary. >> reporter: now, the u.s., the uk, and france are helping in this effort, jim. and you see there a reflection for all these different countries which reflect the nationalities of the people that were on board to at least try and bring some closure to the families of those who were killed. jim. >> gloria, thanks so much. coming up, how the coast guard investigation could impact oceangate's liability. we're going to speak to a

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this week, "titanic" director james cameron, a deep sea explorer himself, offered some harsh criticism of oceangate for not following

basic safety regulations. here's some of that interview. >> and in a multi-seat vehicle where i intended to be the pilot, we'd go through all of the rigorous test protocols and review protocols that you have with, let's say, abs, which is the american bureau of shipping, or dnv or german lloyds, who are the major bureaus that class a sub. they call it classing, but it's basically certification. and i think it was unconscionable that this group did not go through that rigorous process. there is a great, almost surreal irony here which is "titanic" sank because the captain took it full steam into an icefield on a moonless night with very poor visibility after he had been repeatedly warned by telegram, by radio, during the day that that was what was ahead of him.

i think we're seeing a parallel here with make sure if you're going to go into a vehicle, whether it's an aircraft or a surface craft or submersible that it's been through certifying agencies, that it's been signed off. >> seems like a basic point, doesn't it? while the u.s. coast guard is leading efforts to determine how the titan sub imploded, canada has its own investigation under way to determine the possibility at least of criminal liability for those five people killed on board. an effort complicated by the fact that oceangate's founder and ceo, stockton rush, once made comments about breaking safety rules in pursuit of innovation, was one of the victims. he died on the sub. joining me now is a maritime attorney and a u.s. coast guard licensed deep sea captain. good to have you on. thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> so he did not have any certification for this. he spoke about it publicly. he said sometimes certification slows things down. sure it does.

does that contribute to the possibility of criminal negligence here? >> i think it will weigh into whatever litigation comes about from this. there was a statement at one point where he said something along the lines of safety at some point becomes a pure loss. so you really have to wonder about the leader of a corporation who is going on an experimental trip like this, in an untested vessel, making statements like that and sort of circumventing regulations that are there to really help the vessel and the safety of the crew. >> according to someone else who rode on the titan, the waiver that customers signed, you know, includes a long list of all the many ways a customer could die in the submarine. i think folks watching at home, we'll all signed waivers for even simple things. does that relieve the company of liability? >> it's -- at some point, they're going to make that argument. >> mm-hmm. >> but i don't really think it's going to hold any weight. you know, there's this legal

axiom, caveat emptor, translates to buyer beware. you have to consider the fact that the people going on this submersible had plenty of time to consider the risks, weigh them, look at the organization. so there is some onus on them in terms of making that decision. but then ultimately there is going to be litigation with regard to the company and what's left of the corporation at this point. whether they have some other submersibles there and some assets that can be taken. but, you know, it's a really interesting case in a number of ways because the submersible wasn't classed as we saw in the video leading up to this, and it didn't have a flag of registry. so it wasn't registered to any country although the corporation is in the united states. the vessel that the submersible traveled on is out of canada. and then you had citizens on board the submersible from the uk, from pakistan, from france, and from the u.s. so this is really an international issue. >> does it matter that this took

place in international waters, the actual event? >> it matters in terms of it's going to be really difficult to figure out where to litigate this matter. you know, there's the united nations convention on the law of the sea, which really dictates how things are handled on the high seas when it comes to vessels, and even submersibles. so with all of these international considerations, this may be something that rises to the level of litigation at the u.n. level. >> let me ask you this. you're a maritime attorney. you told me you've dealt with cases on the surface before, shipping, et cetera. have you ever dealt with a case like this where there was a safety event where the person involved didn't go through any sort of classing, certification, measures, and even spoke publicly, as stockton rush did, about the sort of inconvenience of safety protocols like that? >> i've never heard of anything like this. this is completely unique, and at some point you have to wonder about the thought process leading up to this. typically when we litigate

matters regarding commercial vessels, they're classed. they're under a flag of registry. they have safety management systems. everything is by the book and managed well. and that's for ships that travel on the surface. you would think the same would apply to ships under the surface. >> where the danger arguably greater, particularly when you're 2 1/2 miles down. klaus luhta, thanks so much. >> pleasure. we do return now to our coverage of the uprising that has rocked russia. what's going to happen now to the mercenary group behind it and its leader? will the wagner fighters continue their battles in ukraine? we'll try to answer some of those questions coming up. g buss both large and small, commununities and the people who live and work there grow and thrive. we're proud to call these places home too. they're where we put down roots, and where together, we work to help move everyone's financial goals forward.

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the fate of the wagner group, the private russian army that has fought some of the deadliest battles in ukraine and beyond. >> it's a fascinating question and seems like there are not that many answers yet. one of the things we have heard from the kremlin is the fighters

of the wagner military group, there was a decree where all private military companies need to have contracts with the russian military of defense, and we have always known wagner was the most well known to most russians and, of course, the one fighting so heavily in mahmoud. now for the wagner fighters, their future to be in the russian military, even prigozhin said wagner would not sign a contract with the russian military. and prigozhin also had other business dealings as well, for instance, his media empire, and of course the u.s. said that prigozhin and his media empire meddled heavily in the 2016 presidential election and he was indicted by the u.s. because of

that. and there are all of the dealings like syria and the oil fields that wagner runs there, and what is going to happen to the training forces, will he maintain control of that while he is in exile in belarus. >> whenever the outcome, a moment in history for russia. thank you for joining us. cnn's coverage continues with michael holmes after a break.

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hello, everyone, and welcome. coming to you live from studio 4 at the cnn center. i am michael holmes. coming up, uncertainty in russia, and there's no sign of what's happening a day after the rebellion. then a powerful tornado in indiana and extreme heat for some 50 million people. live from cnn center, this is cnn "newsroom" with