. good monday morning, everyone, we are so glad you're with us, what a weekend. >> if you blinked or perhaps had a normal life during the weekend you missed an incredible seismic 36 hours. >> we're going to get into all

of it, what happened in russia over the weekend, let's get started with five things to know for this monday, june 26th. the pig question, after the revolt in russia, what happens now? how strong is russian president vladimir putin's grasp on power and where is the leader of the wagner group who threatened to march his hearse nair army to moscow. he remains under investigation for inciting an armed rebellion. >> ukraine looking to take advantage of the chaos, gaining ground around bakhmut as it takes out air targets. severe weather across the country, 90 million people on the east coast under a threat of severe storms, 50 million people experiencing extreme heat. and this twister sending debris flying in indiana. the u.s. coast guard is conducting the highest level of investigation possible into that catastrophic loss of the titan submersible as questions mount over past red flags reportedly ignored by oceangate's ceo. what if you could just take

a pill and lose 15% of your body weight? a new study says it's possible. cnn this morning starts right now. ♪ as phil said, if you blinked in weekend you missed a seismic shift, potentially permanent, is it temporary, what happens to vladimir putin and russia? >> the best part is we have really smart people hanging out the next three hours to answer all of our questions. >> every single one, all of them. you'll see them in a moment. but this morning, growing doubts over vladimir putin's grip on power, after 36 hours of absolute chaos. the mercenary rebellion inside russia appears to be over for now but there are still a lot of unanswered questions. we have not married much from putin after the mutiny that threatened his regime. and where is the wagner boss,

current whereabouts are unknown after he suddenly halted this march toward moscow and supposedly struck a deal with the creme lib to go into exile in belarus. there are last images of prigozhin leaving military headquarters his troops had seized in southern russia. >> at this moment this is what moscow looks like, live pictures. the city was bracing for the worst over the weekend but now the major says all security restrictions have been lifted. this morning, nato secretary general said the rebellion is proof that putin's invasion of the ukraine is a, quote, big strategic mistake. we have team coverage covering all angles, the best of cnn correspondents on the ground in russia, in ukraine, matthew chance is in moscow, payton walsh is in kyiv, arlette saenz on the north lawn of the white house. our experts are in studio. matthew chance is live in russia, it was an incredible weekend. where do things stand? what's the sense on the ground

there this morning? >> reporter: yeah, i mean, what a weekend. i mean, it's been absolutely breathtaking with events unfolding at break neck speed. as you mentioned, i mean, the situation on the face of it seems to have calmed down massively. the emergency security measures that were imposed in moscow as those rebel wagner mercenary forces made their way towards the city at the educational background have now been lifted. but, you know, the territory, i have to say, that had been occupied by wagner, amazingly in the south of the country, in particular, is now firmly back, apparently, under kremlin control. but, you know, coupled with the relief that obviously many people in moscow feel that even more bloodshed has been avoided is a real anxiety about what's been unleashed now by that incredible couple of days at the weekend here in russia. it's been a weekend of chaos in

russia, an armed insurrection threatening the russian state, ending as suddenly as it began. it kicked off on friday with allegations of a deadly strike on a wagner military camp in ukraine, the leader of the russian mercenary group yevgeny prigozhin accusing his rivals in the defense ministry of ordering the attack. russian officials denied any role. but a furious prigozhin, wh repeatedly accused the military of mishandling the war in ukraine, vowed revenge. >> translator: those who destroyed our guys today along with tens of thousands of lives of russian soldiers will be punished. i ask no one to put up any resistance. justice for the troops will be restored, and then justice for all of russia. >> reporter: the threat of violence was a shocking unprecedented challenge, putting wagner on a collision course with the kremlin, a criminal case was launched accusing prigozhin of insurrection. that didn't stop him.

by saturday morning wagner forces had moved into the russian city of rostov-on-don in the country's south, taking over a key military facility there with little resistance. more wagner forces continued north toward moscow, shooting down russian military aircraft that challenged them and ratcheting up the stakes as the russian president addressed the nation. >> translator: this is a blow to russia, to our people, all those who deliberately chose the path of treachery, who prepared an armed mutiny. who chose the path of blackmail will answer to the law and to our people. >> reporter: the slow progress of the wagner column, military check points stet up outside the city. but it was a confrontation that never came. behind the scenes a deal was brokered involving the leader of neighboring belarus. prigozhin would halt the wagner

advance and leave for exile in belarus, an audio message confirmed his forces would stand down. >> translator: therefore, realizing all the responsibility for the fact that russian blood will be shed from one of the sides, we turn our columns around and leave in the opposite direction to the field camps according to the plan. >> reporter: the kremlin later confirmed grievous criminal charges would be dropped as part of the deal. but as wagner forces dispersed on saturday crowds in rostov cheered them, a worrying sign for the kremlin, that prigozhin's short-lived rebellion had struck a popular cord. the big question now in russia is what will this unprecedented challenge to putin's rule unleash? well, indeed, and there's also questions this morning in russia about the whereabouts and the fate of yevgeny prigozhin.

his office says he's out of contact and won't answer questions until he's back in telephone signal range, whatever that means, and it's emerged on russian state media today that the insurrection charges that the ckremlin said were dropped may not have been dropped at all. a great deal of confusion about his fate and his whereabouts. >> matthew chance, thank you so much for this and your reporting on this all weekend. turning to nick paton walsh, how are ukrainians reacting to the chaos they've seen in russia over the course of the weekend? >> reporter: yeah, i mean, the initial glee we certainly felt over the weekend, that is turning into questions about what can be realized on the battlefield, and over the weekend we heard ukrainian officials talking about progress still around hugely symbolic city of bakhmut that wagner had lost and fought so many to get the hold of the city center of, and progress in the south, min

tall details but again chrng the commanders of the armed forces saying there's continued progress around bakhmut. we were hearing from russian state media suggestions that 3,000 rebel fighters or mercenary fighters working for russia may have been redeployed to defend moscow, may have come from the bakhmut area but ukrainian officials are digesting what the changes in russian forces after this weekend may mean for the front lines themselves. obvious signs of change, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy, what a weekend he must have had, spent the back part of it talking to president biden and other allies, here's what he had to say. >> translator: the longer russian aggression lasts, one of the manifestations of this deg regation is that russian aggression is returning to its home harbor. in our conversations with the leaders we have exchanged our assessments of what's happening in russia, we see the situation

in the same way and know how to respond. >> reporter: clearly utter chaos in moscow but ukraine faces a lot of choices here, do they let this continue to play out because we haven't seen vladimir putin appear live on television since yevgeny prigozhin decided to turn his column of armor around? is there more turmoil to come and might it be wise for ukraine to let that play out and worsen? if they throw everything at the front line provide an existential front bring people to gather round vladimir putin because of the potential for a loss in the war here? and also, too, the other issue they face, you can't simply deploy tens of thousands of troops in one direction overnight. it will take time for them to work out where the weaknesses are, but, really, at the end of the day the ukrainian counteroffensive has been about pushing moscow into complicated choices about its priorities on the front line and now there's obviously a weakness at the top and maybe kyiv want to force

difficult decisions when russia is struggling to figure out how to recently defend its own capital, back to you. >> a consistent state of shaping and probing and part of that counteroffensive whether or not they find new openings. nick paton walsh, thank you so much. >> remarkable reporting son saturday in the middle of all this. and bringing in our experts. global affairs kim dozier, david sanger, and retired u.s. army major mike lions, we appreciated you. nick paton walsh in the middle of his reporting from kyiv this weekend wrote a really fascinating piece and in it he said it's impossible to imagine putin's regime will go back to its previous heights of control from this moment, what does this mean actually for russia and for putin? >> well, we have to start, poppy, by saying we don't know but we do know that if you think about everything that we conceived about vladimir putin last week and what we think

about on monday morning it's different. last week i was seeing a senior administration official and we were musing about the fact, this was probably early in the week, that we had not really seen any of the cracks in the putin regime that many had expected. okay? by this morning, boy have we seen them. it's a really open question. how did prigozhin not only plan this out, which u.s. intelligence, we think, had some sense of. >> this was "new york times" reporting and cnn reporting as of wednesday there was a sense this was going to happen. >> that something was going to happen. they were tapped in, in some way to prigozhin's plan. didn't do anything with that piece of do it but they were tapped into it. he got down to 150, 200 miles to moscow, apparently largely unopposed, which may explain why the deal came together. if you're putin and you're naturally paranoid, the old saying, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean

prigozhin's not out to get you. if you're naturally paranoid he must now be wondering what it is he does to reassert control, and that is essentially the biggest worry the administration has right now because putin in a corner feeling as if his own regime may be threatened is a lot more dangerous than putin simply invading ukraine. >> kim, i think the thing -- there's about a hundred questions i'm trying to get my head around, and i also think this isn't a binary type of situation, there are so many different elements and layers, talking about it before the show. prigozhin is a critical player, in africa, in syria, he leads these operations not just in ukraine. but the idea of, to david's point, coming in unopposed, the russian military not doing anything for the most part as they went through this process but also i think there's a natural assumption, in putin's russia, if you do what just happened you shouldn't be alive anymore. he's taken people out for a lot

loss. why is he, to the extent we know, we haven't seen him in several days. why is he still alive? why was a deal struck here? >> we have to measure prigozhin's importance by how putin sees him, that putin let him get away with this. prigozhin is the russians every man, the man that every russian wants to be, the street fighter that came up from nothing and became a billionaire and then is there on the front lines with the troops, and saying things that no one else dares to say. so, in that sense, i think putin understood that taking him out now would make him a martyr and damage putin's own regime and the war in ukraine permanently, whereas what he's now probably got to do is, we wake up to news this morning that the court case against prigozhin hasn't been dropped. >> which is fascinating, by the way. >> exactly. >> wait, what? >> so what i think we're going to see now is this long drawn out public campaign to slowly

take prigozhin apart, moscow's got the goods on him. i think we're going to start seeing court case data presented like here are the bribes he paid, here's video of someone that, you know, it's an early morning audience, sorry, this is a little bit triggering, but this is a guy who's known to assassinate people with heavy gardening equipment, who knows what kind of thing moscow could release that slowly tears him down in the eyes of the people. then he can be taken out. if they do it right now, putin knows that he'll look like one of the guys in the dark suits that's taking bribes as prigozhin alleges all of his russian defense officials are. mike? >> russia has the largest nuclear arsenaclin the world, we can show people to compare, it's just ahead of the united states and everyone else, every other

nuclear armed power is way below that. obviously, putin is in a corner, i think david put it really well, russia is less stable than it was, certainly, on friday. secretary blinken dold dana bash yesterday the u.s. has seen no change in russia's nuclear position but should people be more worried about a nuclear russia right now? the probability is zero. but i would say no. i think there's a lot that has to happen prior to that happening, especially in ukraine, tactical nukes, we know they've moved somewhere them to belarus. we've got good insight on what they can do there. but from a global nuclear it's unthinkable, and i'd like to think that we're not at that spot. >> okay -- >> i also wanted to ask the reporting that david mentioned in the "new york times" and cnn has a reporting too, that intelligence officials in the west knew about this in some shape or fashion since wednesday, and didn't do anything about it. >> a couple things. we have to keep our fingers off it and let this happen, and

watch it. because, if we get too involved with it, especially with regard to what russia thinks, then he uses that story to go back to his people and say, look, nato is involved, the united states is doing it. there's a certain amount of hands off. your enemies making a mistake, let that happen. but this issue about prigozhin being the charges still there, that could be nothing more than a signal to him that you better keep the deal we made. it's not necessarily they're going to take him down. i still think he's an earner. he has influence in africa where russia is trying to get minerals and they have a heads up on that. this could be the early part. to kip's point, it could go badly if he doesn't stick to the terms negotiated. but this could be a signal to him, you better stick with the program we have. >> we don't know what those terms were. >> that's one of the -- >> we're talking about a deal whose details we don't know. there's an assumption, and it could be completely wrong, that prigozhin would not have stopped this unless he had an understanding that his mortal enemy here, the defense

secretary shoigu, is gone. >> that's what marco rubio tweeted over the weekend. that had to have been the deal made. >> we assume so, but it's just an assumption. on the nuclear weapons, i agree with mike, the strategic weapons, which we worry about because they're aimed at us are one thing. one of the concerns over the weekend when we didn't know what units were going to stay loyal to putin and what were going to prigozhin was some of those units up near the border have tactical weapons, and so the concern was briefly, until this all ended, who was got control over the commanders if they flipped to go to prigozhin. this is the first time i can remember in my lifetime that there was concern about who actually had control of the weapons. it was brief. it turned out not to be an issue. let's hope it remains not an issue, but that's the core of the concern. >> everyone stick with us, okay, because also we'll talk about what the white house is doing,

and saying, president biden and his team are closely monitoring these events unfolding in russia, we have new reporting this morning on who president biden spoke to, and how he's responding. >> and also this morning the coast guard officially ending its search and rescue for the titan submersible, an investigation is currently under way, but officials are now looking at. stay tuned. oh booking.com, ♪ i'm going to somewhere, anywhere. ♪ ♪ a beach house, a tree♪

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white house this morning, we're getting new details about president biden's reaction to the insurrection/mutiny/we're not totally sure in russia. the president spoke with several world leaders in the hours after the rebellion, including ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy. cnn's arlette saenz is live in the north lawn at the white house. what was the message president biden was trying to convey to allies in this very fluid moment? >> phil, president biden spent the weekend working the phones with allies as the white house tried to get a handle on the impact of this seemingly short-lived rebellion in russia. the president huddled with jake sullivan over the weekend and officials i spoke with said one of the president's priorities was trying to consult with allies central to the western response to the russian war in ukraine. that's why he placed phone calls to volodymyr se lensy and also the leaders of france, germany, the united kingdom and canada. one of the messages this those conversations was essentially to lay low, allow the situation in russia to play out.

they've also taulked about the u.s. and the west, long standing support for ukraine throughout this war and it really speaks to this deliberately quiet and cautious strategy that we've seen from the white house over the weekend. we have yet to hear from president biden, and officials say that part of the reason is because they don't want to give vladimir putin any pretense, any reason to suggest that the west was trying to interfere in this matter. now, the first reaction did come from secretary of state antony blinken yesterday when he told our colleague dana bash that these events were extraordinary and that he did not believe they were yet completely resolved, but blinken did note the events, the rebellion, showed that there are some cracks in vladimir putin's hold on power in russia, one of the big questions this white house will be facing today, and in the days to come is how exactly this will impact the larger war in ukraine, and also broader, the impact it has on putin's power in russia as

they are now beginning to see some fishers amidst this rebellion. >> arlette saenz, a lot of late nights in the national security council across the street in the eisenhower executive office building, and cnn's white house team. thanks. let's bring back our panel. i want to play what i thought was an interesting answer from blinken to dana bash. here it is. >> do you believe that this is the beginning of the end for vladimir putin? >> i don't want to speculate about that. but what's so striking about it is it's internal, the fact that you have from within someone directly questioning putin's authority, the premises upon which he launched this aggression against ukraine that in and of itself is something very, very powerful. it adds cracks. where those go, when they get there, too soon to say. >> too soon to say.

for sure. but i thought it was interesting that on the show with danny yesterday, david patreas pointed out if putin were to lose power who's to say someone more dictatorial, who may be more feared if prigozhin were successful wouldn't just fill that void? >> prigozhin is not the democratic answer to russia's problems. one of the problems, though, is putin has not allowed anyone to develop popularity, leadership skills to take the reins after him, which is one of the fears -- >> the fact he's imprisoned people like inavalny who have gained a following. >> only as a useful tool. one of the questions now is what happens with the wagner group which was run a bit like a mafia enterprise, personality-based.

but operates a bit like iran uses its revolutionary guard as an arm of foreign policy, as an executer of state policy. if you're in mali right now and you've got a contract with wagner and were counting on them to train your forces to control terrorism in that country, do you trust them right now? do you trust what moscow is sending your way? you're watching this internal rebellion, and saying, is -- is putin the strong man i thought he was? >> there was another part of sec their blinken's answer i thought was really interesting, and he did this on several networks. it was, he said, 16 months ago we were wondering how quickly vladimir putin would take kyiv. this saturday we were wondering whether he could defend moscow. while they were being careful not to get too in, too deep, they were putting the knife in a

little bit saying your rule is, in fact, in jeopardy here. i haven't heard u.s. officials sort of do that before. and remember, it's only two weeks from now that you're going to see all of those international leaders in lithuania right on russia's border at the nato summit with president biden, and you've got to think that that is going to drive putin a little bit nuts. >> and this actually gets to something i've been thinking about, major lions, in the sense of, at the nato summit, long been circled as a critical summit given the fact that ukraine is starting its counteroffensive, ukraine needs to continue to show progress to ensure the western support is maintained, does this end up bolstering that case to some degree? we've seen cracks, as what western leaders may say, we need to double down on the military support we're providing at this point. >> yeah, no, i think so, i think, for example, that ukraine military will do much better when the more nato equipment

arrives in the coming months, survivability of the crews. they're keeping their heads down watching what's going on across the border but that group when they meet is going to send that, project the more message of unity and again the equipment that the west has been sending is much more survivable and it's going to give the ukraine military the better advantage. >> do you feel like in the near term with the shaping, the probing, a slow, very slow process, wasn't unexpected, by the way, that this opens doors in the near term? >> we have to see. they've been hamstrung without air superiority on the ground. they've got to focus on attacking russian units, not trying to take real estate. they take the towns and we find the towns are completely wrecked and destroyed. it improves morale that they're gaining ground so to speak but to win they've got to get through multiple defensive belts and attack russian troops, get them to retreat and surrender. >> i've only had 3% of my questions answered. >> don't go far. stay with us, everyone, also,

this morning, the coast guard launching an investigation into the implosion of the titan. >> and we are hearing this morning from the woman who lost her husband and her son on that doomed submersible. hear her describe her last moments with her loved ones. >> we just hugged, and joked, actually, because he was so excited to go down, like a little child. what's considered normal for your cat is intereing. but if yr cat isn't their quirky self lately, they may have pain from a common condition called osteoarthritis.

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when we paused the 96 hour mark that's when i lost hope, and that's when i even then sent a message to my family on shore, i said i'm preparing for the worst. >> it is a woman, a wife, a mother, she lost both her son and her husband in the titan submersible tragedy last week, reflecting on the agony of waiting for the news of their death. sule man and shahzada day wood

died. christine dawood said she was going to go, but her son was so excited she let him take her place. meantime, the coast guard announced it's leaving the investigation into what caused the implosion that killed all five people on board. our national correspondent miguel marquez joins us live from st. john's. what else do we know about this investigation? >> reporter: well, there's going to be a lot of investigating of this incident. i want to point out that the ship that christine dawood and the titan was on is now ported, and docked at its home port outside of horizon maritime offices here, it was across the harbor at a coast guard port for the weekend where they collected evidence, canadian coast guard collected evidence, and took some statements. there are, as many as six different inquiries and investigations into this incident, the u.s. coast guard has announced its own investigation of a marine board investigation, the highest level of investigation it can do, the tsb, the canadian transportation

safety board has an investigation it has started, the national transportation safety board of the u.s. has started an investigation, the french and british marine accident agencies have started investigations into this and the royal canadian mounted police, the sort of national police of canada says it will look to see if there were any laws broken, or anything criminal with regard to this incident. so this is going to be discussed, and coordinated with, against -- with all of these agencies on an international basis going forward. the first part of that started this weekend with the canadian transportation safety board taking statements from people who were on that ship behind me, getting the data recorders, getting any video, any audio, and any data that they can from that sub to the ship so that they can begin that investigation, and quite likely share it with other agencies worldwide to look into not only

how this happened, why it happened, but also going forward is, are there ways to prevent this? especially the u.s. coast guard. interested in that, they spent the money to pay for it all and will pay for it all as they do with every one of these situations but now they have to figure out whether there's ways to avoid the situations. >> ever happening again. miguel, really appreciate the continued reporting from you up there, thank you. >> well, the wagner group's weekend rebellion in russia showing clear cracks in russian president vladimir putin's grip on power. how ukrainian forces might be adjusting their war strategy. the response, coming up next.

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this is a video of russian military plane that was reportedly shot down by the wagner group in southern russia. russian state media reports that several helicopters and military communications planes were

brought down during that brief 36-hour rebellion. yevgeny prigozhin who apparently struck a deal to leave russia for belarus has not been seen yet. and back to major mike lions, one of the things we're trying to figure out right now is what happens to prigozhin's forces, to the wagner group that's been so critical for russia's efforts to this point? >> they were here, whether they started their insurgency, threatened moscow but we don't know what's going to make of them, that they have great equipment, they've got great tanks, they have planes, they have to be fed, they have to be watered. so we're not really sure what happens. i don't see them joining the regular russian forces in ukraine, or in -- on those front lines there, these are not those kind of troops, they're not interested in getting anymore into the fight. they've been out of bakhmut, this area here, they've been out of there for about six to eight weeks right now. they haven't been in the fight for that long. >> important point. people associate them with

bakhmut because of their outsized role in the long-running battle but they have been pulled back. what does this mean for ukrainian forces on the ground right now? ukrainian forces have to get as much intelligence from the west as they possibly can to find out where these cracks are in these places, where specifically along this line here, where they could find areas that they can exploit. there's significant bands of defensive operations with mines, trenches, all the things. they've got to find out where the weak spots are, and make sure they can exploit them. they don't have air superiority. they're doing a counteroffensive, hamstrung, and then the second thing is bring in more western tanks and that equipment that's going to help their troops survive. survivability of their forces right now is number one. they don't want to do, make the mistake russia did by putting troops in harm's way unnecessarily. >> we're going to keep this conversation going, you and i are going to walk back to the desk, don't trip, but poppy and experts are still with us right

now. >> that's usually my job. you guys are going to be fine. >> can i? >> yeah, it says phil. >> oh, it does, all right, sweet, we're bringing back in kim and david, major lyons is still with us right now. we flicked at it towards the end, a couple minutes ago, the two russian defend leaders that have become the arch nemesis of yevgeny prigozhin, it's been a shocking several months of him repeatedly going onto social media and eviscerating the two most powerful military leaders in vladimir putin's military. what happens to them now? >> really great question. we don't know what was in that deal that got prigozhin to turn around, and maybe it was that they get ousted? if first question was, why did putin put up with this? people who put a blog on or a telegram message out critical of

vladimir putin get, you know, thrown in the geu laug, and we don't hear about them for a long time. prigozhin was on every single day beating up on these guys, saying they're incompetent, saying they're corrupt, basically suggesting he should have their job and putin put up with it until this weekend when suddenly he calls him a traitor. the second interesting question is, if putin does replace shoigu, the defense minister, or gerasimov, the somewhat famed commander of the military, who does he put in his place and do they have a strategy that's any better than the one they've been executing on so far? and it's not clear to me that either of those, you know, applies at this point. gerasimov particularly important. he's the one who laid out the nuclear strategy for employment of nuclear weapons by russia in 2020 and earlier than that, and of course one of the potential uses of a preemptive nuclear

weapon is if the regime appears threatened. we've never seen that until this weekend. >> shoigu was more likely to be a fall guy because he doesn't have the military pedigree that gerasimov has. in terms of answering your question of why did putin let prigozhin mouth off like this day after day after day, i think putin is self-aware enough to understand he's only getting the best news from his hierarchy, and prigozhin was a useful tool for all this time to nag his commanders. prigozhin, he might have thought, was giving him the real truth of what was happening on the battlefield. >> he praised prigozhin a month ago for bakhmut. >> but finally the bosses of the military won putin over and said he's too much of a wild card, which is why they said, okay, wagner has to be brought under our control, yes, everyone in wagner has to sign a contract by july 1st, you're going under the

military's command now, and that's what wagner -- that's what prigozhin rebelled against because it also meant surely they get a cut of what has been billions going to him. >> remember their relationship is really deep, prigozhin and putin. >> oh, yeah. >> prigozhin began as a caterer. >> that's the name putin's chef. >> putin's chef. the only time i ever saw him live was at a summit meeting that george w. bush went to in st. petersburg and he was there making the dinner as they were all floating down the river, happier times. >> you actually saw him making the dinner? >> we saw him serving and you see photographs of that. but the -- the fascinating thing is he then went on to run the internet research agency, we all forget this, and was critical to the effort to manipulate the 2016 election. so, he's been there to solve a lot of problems. >> and to kim's point before, he's the every man soldier,

soldier looks at him, he's on social media, he's out there. you're in the fox hole, you look at your leadership and you go, are they doing the same thing i'm doing? he does. that's what gives him legitimacy, why they've got to be concerned about these 25,000 wagner forces. >> the video, when they were leavi leaving rostov-on-don, and people were clapping and celebrating and cheering. >> and he's smiling a bit there. >> there's a populous element of this that putin has to be cognizant of. >> good point. stay with us, guys, we're continuing to follow the stunning developments in russia, but also this news, a new daily diet pill showing weight loss results that rival the injury excusedable -- injectable drugs like ozempic, how does it work, next. the first time you connected your godaddy websisite and your store was also the first time you realized... well, we can do anything.

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an experimental pill could help people lose weight as effectively as popular shots like wegovy and ozempic. this drug helped users lose an average of 15% of their body weight in just three months. cnn medical correspondent mike turrell is here. i worry when i hear quick fix. so, this is good, same side effects as the shot, what do we know? >> yeah, so right now the available drugs are all self-injectables given once a week, wegovy is the only one approved for weight loss and you have to give them as shots. there's a new class of drugs that's coming along in development where you take a daily pill and essentially does the same thing and in this new data we're seeing from a diabetes conference over the weekend, they're actually yielding the same amount of weight loss as we govy, about 15%. a study over 36 weeks and people started out an average over 240 pounds on the study. in the highest dose average

rating loss of 36 pounds over 36 weeks. but as you mentioned, the side effects, we know the side effects for ozempic and -- can be similar. starting lower dose and higher one, that's when you experience the side effects. the hope is you can figure out a way to do that where you don't feel as bad when you're taking them. >> can i ask a question? i feel like these drugs were created for people with health risks, people with diabetes. this has become a popular fad type of deal, name your tv show or reality show and everyone seems to be on it. >> that i mean your celeb. >> is this moving towards that, the end-game goal from a market perspective or is it still focused on those who have health issues and need it? ? the companies are very specific that they are only targeting the drug towards the fda approved

indications, type 2 diabetes or obesity, and there's a trial this summer showing the hope is that this can reduce heart attacks and strokes in people who don't have diabetes as well but there is a fear this will be used in pill form for people who don't need that. >> are the companies afraid of that? >> profits, profits. >> but potentially other good side effects, helping people stop drinking, the things we were talking about a few weeks ago, stop addictive behaviors, a huge game changer on a lot of fronts, thank you very much. >> thanks. we're following the news out of russia. wagner chief yevgeny prigozhin may be banished to belarus. how did his march to moscow affect putin's grip on power? we'll have that next. humpty dumpty does it with a great fall. wonderful pistachios. get crackin' ♪ hit it ♪

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call now 800-710-0020. this morning, more than 90 million people, mostly on the east coast, are under severe storm alerts, in southern indiana, or tornado, you can see right here, ripped through neighborhoods and damaged at least 75 homes according to officials there. at least one person has been killed in the area. the storm's also leaving hundreds of thousands without power in the midwest and the south. severe thunderstorm alerts are in place with large hail and powerful winds for arkansas, louisiana, oklahoma, and texas. nearly 40 million people are also under heat alerts from arizona to alabama, with temperatures expected in the triple digits. >> we'll keep an eye on that weather. also, our top story, what happened in russia over the weekend. cnn this morning continues right now. ♪ >> a weekend o