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good morning, it is 11:00 a.m. eastern, i'm katy tur here from new york. >> and i'm chris jansing with special coverage on what is happening inside russia. for the first time, we are still waiting to hear from vladimir putin. now, we haven't heard anything since his former ally and the head of the ruthless mercenary wagner group attempt add revolt, and this new video released by russia, is it new or just something put out by the kremlin? who knows when it was taped. we can't say. and where is the man responsible for the dramatic weekend events, yevgeny prigozhin. right now we still don't know and he hasn't been seen since saturday when he decided to turn his forces back after marching toward the kremlin. and seemingly agreed to live in exile in belarus. so now russia, a country armed with more nuclear weapons than any other nation led by a man desperate to proclaim the old soviet union glory is at a crossroads. and while the world watches,

ukraine is acting. ukrainian forces say they have captured another village, the ninth since the counteroffensive began. we're going to discuss what they're doing to try to exploit moscow's instability. >> but we begin with msnbc political analyst peter baker who spent years in russia as the moscow co-bureau chief for "the washington post." it's so good to have you here. first of all, two-part question, should we be surprised that putin is master of disinformation has put out no information, so i want to ask you about your assessment of the situation that faces him after 23 years in power. but we're also learning that there's some sort of audio message coming out from prigozhin. we are waiting, we're getting that interpreted. what do you make of this situation on the ground right now, peter? >> yeah, it's of course very curious that president putin has not been public since the resolution of this short-lived mutiny. remember, he gave that speech to the nation at the beginning of

the threat. he likened it to 1917 when the revolution, the boll she vick resolution, he vowed to crush prigozhin and his people, and then suddenly he disappears. they make a peaceful resolution, and he says nothing at all to the russian people about this. how should they think about this? that leaves a vacuum in the public space at the very least that is confusing to a lot of russians and is not always a sign of strength, not a sign of strength for president putin at this point. there's a lot of questions he's left unanswered. >> another question we'll have is what does it mean for putin's future? this has been pointed out multiple times is that it shows weakness from a man that we don't see weakness from normally, and people are saying it spells the end of vladimir putin's reign, that maybe in the next election he'd be convinced not to run again next spring.

how from your experience there, what are the ways that you see this playing out, peter? >> the question is whether he lasts until next spring. if you're vladimir putin at this point, you have been shown to be to some extent a paper tiger, right? you're no longer the unrivalled emperor at home who cannot be challenged. you can be challenged. in fact, you can even be forced to back down from your threats of crushing the opposition. and you've been shown to be a paper tiger on the international scene. the russian army has of course been beaten back by the smaller nation next door to you, ukraine, which nobody would have been expecting a year and a half ago. to be exposed like this as somebody less than the invincible vladimir putin leaves you vulnerable to all sorts of plots and intrigues. we have no idea what's happening behind the scenes. are there people in the circles of power who are maneuvering, who are, you know, making plans, who are intriguing. why is he not out in public? is he trying to, you know,

protect himself in some way? all these questions are the kind of questions we're asking right now. the united states intelligence agencies are asking as well. >> anne applebaum is asking whether this is putin's czar nicholas. >> he has brought up what happened previously with russia. his knowledge of history notwithstanding, what do we know about -- and look, getting in the mind of vladimir putin, you and i have talked about this many times, is risky business, but when he's backed into a corner, what's the natural reaction? >> reporter: well, when he's backed into a corner, that's when he becomes the most dangerous, right? i mean, he learned that as a young kid in the streets of st. petersburg. he tells a story of being at a community apartment where he grew up and a rat was cornered and how it leaped out at him, and that was a lesson he took, right? never corner a rat because you don't know what they're going to do.

and that's where he is right now. and he is at this point potentially in an erratic or volatile moment. that's the fear in the west. what does he do in this moment to reassert himself, to a show he is the czar, to show he is the boss in effect. does he do something in ukraine, something he might not have cone before. that's where you're most concerned. over the weekend american officials told us they saw no evidence of any issues with the russian nuclear arsenal. that, of course, is concern number one in the west. but you never know what he might do as a result of feeling cornered. >> peter baker, thank you for that. joining us now, clint watt, at microsoft who worked as a consultant to the fbi counterterrorism decision. he's also an msnbc national security analyst ask retired four-star general barry mccaffrey. >> we've been watching ukraine, watching vladimir putin's moves

inside ukraine, watching them fail in large part, the surprise of this war lasting not just days but a year, do you think this hastens the end of the war in ukraine? >> probably not. putin, who has disappeared from sight understandably, he's trying to sort out who's on his side. why was it that a tiny force, 5,000 troops was able to leave ukraine, the wagner group, and advance to the gates of moscow. why weren't they stopped. some was just mechanical. the russians don't have a reserve force left apparently, but he passed through all sorts of police blockades. the people cheered the mercenaries on. what is going on? putin's got to figure that out. >> can i interrupt you for a second, general? because we are getting now this message from pprigozhin, which has been interpreted by reuters.

let me read it to you, and i'll get both of your reactions. he said we showed no aggression, but we were hit by missiles and helicopters. this was the trigger. he says we turned around to avoid spilling blood of russian soldiers. we regret that we had to hit russian aviation. the aim of the march was to avoid the destruction of wagner. we wanted to hold accountable those who made mistakes during special military operation. we didn't march to overthrow russia's leadership. the march showed serious security problems in the country. general, i'll startprigozhin? >> of course the poor man, he's got a worse retirement plan than putin does, you know, dictators don't get to leave office easily. there is a question why was he not opposed in the march on moscow, simply astonishing, and now his future, of course, is in doubt. putin's got to eliminate him.

he's got to put a tag on all the 5,000 troops that advanced on moscow and get them off the scene. we're just waiting to see how this plays out. it's hard to understand. at the end of the day, though, putin can't leave office easily. the public activity would have to pull him out of office. he can't be killed, very secure. he can't back off ukraine. his army can't win in ukraine for sure. he's really stuck. so there's a lot of -- the situation looks extremely grim from putin's perspective. >> clint, let's talk about just the status of the battlefield right now, there is fighting on the east coast. the russians are trying to make more advances. they're in the middle of their counteroffensive. do they have momentum?

>> you know, the ukrainians are in a tough spot because the russians have built up all winter very strong defensive positions. it's going to be very difficult to dislodge them, but they can make some advances. as you noted at the start of this segment, they have taken some villages. they have made some incremental gains. the biggest question with prigozhin, does this rift create a real break in the ranks. we saw retreats. we saw people surf rendering tanks we saw russian military troops evacuating their positions and moving backwards. the wagner groups were the shock troops. they were in bakhmut and were advancing. part of prigozhin's message there you just read from reuters shows you this is not settled between putin and prigozhin.

wasn't of the messages was that prigozhin killed several russians, killed russian people, attacked russian forces. what prigozhin is coming back with right there is that he was unprovoked. he was just having a nice march to moscow and that this helicopter showed up and started firing at them. they had to shoot back. he's trying to fight that media battle right now, trying to win over the hearts and minds of people inside russia that he really was for the people. i think that's where the real split is here. prigozhin, he's trying to be the populist. down in the ranks, you're talking about the lower educated, the poor, those in rural locations. they're the ones that get forced into the russian army. it's not the elites of moscow. and that's been the big claim of prigozhin over the last few months. one of his chief criticisms against the russian military, is that the russian military is hiding in moscow, the elites are not supplying him with

ammunition. part of this was a ploy. prigozhin needs money and he wanted to keep his wagner force. to the same point he's playing to a rift that could be somewhat substantial. do the russian soldiers on the battlefield in ukraine see what's going on with prigozhin, start to side with him and really feel disaffected. you know, there's a split between the lower and upper ranks of the russian military that continues to blossom. that would be a real game changer for the ukrainian military if they can make advances? >> how do they get that info? are they getting it on whatsapp channels? is there a communication method where they're learning about what's happening with prigozhin and vladimir putin? i know we see that video of prigozhin being cheered and hugged and keir was telling us it's not being shown on tv in russia. >> no, i think the key point is there's a big achilles heel for putin and all of the russian federation in terms of their media. remember, prigozhin owns not just the wagner group but also what's known as patriot media

group. and that is the same group that owned the internet research agency. we were talking election 2016 in the u.s., they've been used prolifically in nearly every election campaign the russians have meddled in and in terms of africa. a lot of the wagner group troops are supported by media. where does that play out at? that's principally in telegram. if you went to telegram channels, you will see some debate, and wagner very much controls many of those channels. separately, wagner's been doing its own recruitment, not only in social media, but even things like going out to gaming communities, trying to recruit young people to be drone operators or do cyber operations or trolling operations. one of the weird things about this is putin went for plausible deniability to prigozhin years ago to do the dirty work of russia around the world, and now they've lost control of it. in terms of the media space, it's not going to be readily accessible inside russia but a

lot of russians have been listening to it through alternative means for a very long time. word will get out. it will come in through different channels. it will be blocked in as many places as possible so patriot media blocked on bk, that's the russian version of facebook today. a lot of those channels are blocked. it will still get into those communities. >> the question is i have general, is that a moment in time what we're seeing, the people who are surrounding prigozhin and they're taing pictures and cheering him on, does it reflect a larger feeling across the country? i mean, 16 months ago putin thought he was just going to march into kyiv, and we know what's happened since then. >> first of all, i think clint got this entirely right. the only thing putin has going for him right now it seems to me is that prigozhin actually was an outlier. he wasn't part of the club. he may be a billionaire, but he was a thug. the his career criminal life

span started by choking out some woman on the street and stealing her boots, purse, and earrings. so the elites are the security forces,ed other oligarchs weren't going to accept prigozhin taking over the russian government. that just was complete nonsensuous but there's no going back now. putin has revealed that he had very little absolute power to include over his own armed forces. why was there not a firefight in the city of rostov-on-don, the major operational headquarters for the war in ukraine, and they went quiet when a few thousand troops came to town. so putin's in trouble. there's no walking back. he's desperate. he's got to take action. he does have a couple thousand tactical nuclear weapons. so biden's been quite correct to be cautious in his actions. >> general barry mccaffrey, clint watts, thank you so much.

in just 60 seconds, our special coverage of russia continues. we're live on the ground in ukraine with what prigozhin's revolt could mean for the battlefield. we also have that new sound from prigozhin. also, congressman jason crow joins us next. he wants answers on what will happen to russia's nuclear weapons stockpile. we're back in one minute. we're back in one minute

on capitol hill, the vice chair of the senate intelligence committee, marco rubio says russia is weaker and more vulnerable than ever. so does congress do anything more to weaken vladimir putin further? joinings now is democratic congressman jason crow of colorado. he's a member of the house intelligence and foreign affairs committee. you have not yet been briefed, sir, as i understand it. when you do get briefed, what are your questions? >> well, i'd like to know what happened with the security of those nuclear weapons during this insurrection in russia,

whether there was any change or posture. whether we were able to get any intelligence on the security forces that maintain those weapons and whether they were changing in communicaing with themselves. it would be interesting to see whether we were able to glean loyalty so that security service from the standing russian military. we should also be able to have more intelligence on what the russian military was talking about, what the wagner mercenaries were talking about and really try to understand better where people's allegiances are. >> let me ask you your level of concern about the security of nuclear weapons and the fact that is vladimir putin who fears he may have lost control a vladimir putin whose power has clearly been challenged. do -- what is your level of concern that he does something he might not otherwise do. talk to us about your level of concern and specific concerns about that nuclear stockpile. >> well, i'm clearly no fan of vladimir putin. i have a lifetime ban.

i've been sanctioned by putin, i can't ever go to russia so long as vladimir putin is in charge of russia. he's a war criminal. he's a terrible atrocious man, but so is prigozhin for that matter, but we have to tread carefully and lightly. the biden administration is doing just that. they're being cautious. they're assessing the situation. we're consulting with our allies. whenever you have a country that's sitting on several thousand nuclear warheads, you have to do that. an unstable, volatile russia is a dangerous russia, so we have to be very careful hear. there's a lot of outstanding questions that this entire incident brought up. the first question is why didn't the russian military actually come to vladimir putin's aid. the second is how did you have a 30,000 person mercenary force be able to move towards russia without any resistance whatsoever, but really, the third question -- and this is a really fundamental one -- vladimir putin is known for having the strongest intelligence service -- one of the strongest intelligence

services in the world, is fb intelligence that keeps a close eye on what's happening in russia. he was taken by surprise here. there's no other way to take this. they were putting dumpsters in the middle of highways. he did not know this was coming, which was pretty shocking. >> prigozhin wouldn't, i think by most accounts, be a much better leader than vladimir putin if he were to take charge or somebody like him. again, there's the largest nuclear stockpile in the world that russia is in control of. are you concerned about instability when it comes to that, those nuclear codes, and wherever they are over there falling into even worse hands? >> sure. you know, we have to be mindful of it. we have to be very careful of it. there are nuclear arsenals around the world that i'm concerned about. it's not just in russia either. we always have to keep a close eye on, that and we do. our intelligence services do keep a very close eye on it. we have to be looking at what

our options are to assist country and securing that. you know, whether there's a coup in russia, an insurrection in russia or any place else, we cannot have nuclear weapons being used by rogue individuals in rogue states period. that's something we all should be able to get behind. this administration is doing the right things. they're keeping a close eye on it. we have con contingency plans in place. i have a lot of confidence that president biden will look at all options. >> "the washington post" editorial board talked about the many concerns that are posed by instability in russia. obviously nukes, first, but they also point out that this is somebody who sends a message as a cornered rat he will always strike back. as you launch in the coming hours and days, what are you looking for from vladimir putin? what is your concern in terms of vladimir putin and what, again, are the questions you have and that you will have about where

he is, what he's doing, and who he has around him? >> yeah, there's no doubt about that. vladimir putin is concerned about one thing and one thing only and that is power, maintaining power. there's nobody who's really loyal to him. there are people who fear him. he has no friends. he has no power base outside of his transactional relationships and the people who fear him, and the less fear that he perceived he has and used to control people, the more dangerous and volatile he can become certainly within russia. we have to be looking at what would i imagine will be a bit of a purge in russia in the weeks and months to come. he's probably going to be looking at who's loyal and what forces actually move towards prigozhin because there are several military units. there are several oligarchs who are quiet. fled to moscow or aligned with prigozhin's mercenary forces. so we're probably going to look at a purge to some degree of some of those folks but also a realignment that provides an opportunity for ukraine right now to press the advantage in

their counteroffensive and take advantage of the disarray in russia over the next couple of weeks. >> we've gotten an updated translation from our own people on what prigozhin said. as a result oaf intrigues of poorly thought out decision wagner was supposed to have ended its existence on july 1st, 2023. i presume he's talking about the deal that russia wanted to fold all of these mercenary groups under the direction of the ministry of defense. those fighters who have decided they are ready to join the ministry of defense have done so, but it's a very small number measured at around 1 to 2%. he says we were categorically against what they, the government and the defense wanted to do. the administrative defense launched a missile strike on us and immediately following this helicopters attacked us, he says. nearly 30 wagner fighters were killed, he says. we stopped for the following two reasons, firstly to prevent russian blood from being shed.

secondly, our goal was to demonstrate our protest, not to change russia's authorities. do you want to tell us what you think of what he's saying there? >> yeah, well, basically interpret that to mean this is far from over. this is not done. prigozhin's security and, you know, his safety is very much in question. if he thinks he's going to belarus and retire in safety, he's kidding himself. but i don't think he's that naive either. so this could get worse. you know, putin has created a 30,000 person mercenary force. he's created this monster, and he unleashed it in ukraine and africa and the middle east and other places. these folks are not loyal to vladimir putin. they're certainly not loyal to the russian military. the russian military knows that. they don't trust them. the mercenaries don't trust the russian military. this force is all around the world. so this is going to be very interesting in the weeks ahead, but potentially very dangerous as well.

looking at africa, this is the last piece, africa and the middle east, they have used wagner to maintain russian control and influence in central and western africa in particular. so as those mercenaries moved out of africa and as the wagner force destabilizes, we have to be looking at what conflict might arise in the weeks and months ahead in other places around the world. >> congressman jason crow, thank you very much. >> you're watching a special edition of "msnbc reports." so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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joining us now is kelly cobiella live for us in kyiv. so kelly, we just got this new audio from yevgeny prigozhin where he's talking about how he did not want to change the regime in russia. he was just trying to make a point that the invasion of ukraine is not being led well by russian leadership, by russian military leadership. can you see anything going on on the ground there in kyiv that, i

don't know, that helps us understand more of where prigozhin was coming from, says he was coming from? >> reporter: well, i think the most interesting part of that statement from the point of view of the ukrainians and what's happening on the battlefield in ukraine is the bit where prigozhin talks about this change in status. that on july the 1st, mercenaries were going to be absorbed into the russian military, and he says in this audio statement that they put it out to their guys and said, hey, who wants to join the regular russian forces and be commanded by essentially the guy at the top, putin and his defense minister choi gu, if you believe p prigozhin, he says only about 1 to 2% actually wanted to be part of the regular russian military. and then of course there are several other things that happened in between, and we have the march on moscow. what it means now on the battlefield here is it may, in

fact, answer a question that we keep asking. will these wagner fighters, however many there may be, be absorbed back into the russian military. the kremlin said that was part of the deal on saturday that nobody would be prosecuted and they would be allowed to sign on with the russian military. it looks as though, if you believe prigozhin, that's not going to happen. so in that case, you do have this very effective fighting force taken out of the battlefield picture in the war on ukraine. you still have a huge number of soldiers fighting for the russian federation, no doubt about it, and it is still a very difficult fight. the ukrainians will say that they've been gaining ground. it's bit by bit. they're small pieces of land. there are villages here, villages there. another one yesterday. we've talked about this video of ukrainian soldiers raising the flag in a small village, i believe in the donetsk region just across the border from the

zaporizhzhia region. so sort of in the southeast. the ninth village that they say they've taken over from the russians since their offensive began. so you know, they're still making progress, but it's still a slog even with this distraction in russia, even with the idea of the wagner fighters being taken out of the mix. >> kelly cobiella, thank you very much. and joining us now is former press secretary to ukraine's president volodymyr zelenskyy. >> she's also the author of "the fight of our lives, my time with zelenskyy, ukraine's battle for democracy and what it means for the world." thanks very much for joining us. let me summarize a number of things that have happened over the last several hours including this new statement where wagner's leader says when they asked them, do you want to go and be part of the russian army, 1 to 2% said yes. we have not heard from vladimir putin. what seemed or was presented

like a deal between prigozhin and putin may not be a deal at all. when you look at everything that has unfolded over the last 24, 48 hours, what does it mean for ukraine? what do you believe it means on the battlefield? >> chris, katy, thank you for having me. russia presented itself as a military autocracy, and this big attempt, teams of a coup by prigozhin shows that russian military autocracy is not united. we see at least three military forces that fight inside russia. these are militaryshoygu, and military who support putin. this is military company who can choose any side because they have private military company, and also we have seen already that the opposition volunteer

corps that fight inside russia, they are oppositioning to putin and when we see at least three more forces in military autocracy, this means they are not united. there is a huge crack to this autocracy ask here all the people hope that it can lead in some time hopefully faster to the end of putin's regime. the second thing that we see that ukrainian military is using this chance to regain territories. even, you know, 25 thousands of troops left the front line and there was the lowest between soldiers. they didn't know what to expect. so in fact, we're trying to regain as much territories and possible and really hope that it will help us to have the victory faster. >> do you have an idea of what location that is currently being a part of the counteroffensive, what location is most vulnerable to ukraine taking it back?

where are they more heavily focused? now that prigozhin's off the battlefield, we believe at least, is there an area where ukraine can make fast headway? >> well, let's be frank that donetsk region and prigozhin's forces, they left donbas -- region -- ukraine regained their several -- already to move forward in other directions in the south, like zaporizhzhia direction and kherson direction. >> thank you so much. we do appreciate you being with us. yulia men dell. we'll be back with more. you're watching a special edition of "msnbc reports: russia in crisis." isis." just by switching. ooooh, let me put a reminder on my phone. on the top of the pile! oh. only pay for what you need.

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one of the most surprising things this weekend was what the russian people did not do. one of our next guests argues it was also the most telling. >> joining us now is anne applebaum who writes the apathy of the russian people showed to the march on moscow is the real threat to putin. also with us, "new york times" paris bureau chief roger cohen who just returned from a month-long reporting trip to russia. so anne, fascinating article that you wrote. the power of apathy and how it

works or doesn't work in an autocratic regime. tell us your take on what we're seeing right now in the moment out of russia and the lack of even a sighting or a word from vladimir putin. >> over the past decade, putin has conducted a very particular type of propaganda in russia. he offers people conflicting explanations of the same event, sometimes contradictory, sometimes one after the next. you know, he's famously been described as a fire hose of falsehoods. one of the effects of that is that people don't really know what's true. they don't know to believe, what's real, what's false, and if you don't know what's true, there's nothing really you can do about it. this has been an effective way of preventing russians from organizing, from creating any kind of opposition, but it also turns out that it was an effective way of persuading them that there wasn't anything in particular that they needed to do when a band of mercenaries

came to the city of rostov and announced they were occupying it and that they were mutinying against -- staging a mutiny against the army leadership. so what you saw in rostov was ordinary people who came to see the men with the tanks. they bought them food. they cheered them on. they took selfies with them. you saw that the mercenaries themselves encountered surprisingly little resistance. they got within 200 miles of the city and had few air attacks, which they shot right down and not much else. you know, there are just -- there isn't the energy to oppose them. there wasn't the will to oppose them. this isn't a society that even minds really whether putin is in charge or somebody else. >> you also write that life went on as normal. the street sweepers were still working as this was all happening. roger, given that apathy that anne describes and the danger of it, does it surprise you more we

haven't heard directly from vladimir putin today? i know they released that video. it's not dated. it's not clear when it was shot. he doesn't address what happened over the weekend which makes people wonder if this was an old video shot at some other point? >> i don't think it was an old video. i think it was a video to try to put down the uprising and in the end the uprising did evaporate. i'm not particularly surprised that he hasn't appeared. he doesn't really push himself on russians in a blatant way. when you're in russia, in moscow, anywhere for that matter, you never see a billboard with putin's face on it. you never see an image of him. and i think he -- i think his quasi invisibility at times and his invisibility over the last 48 hours, he thinks it's quite an effective way to maintain

this hold he has on the russian people. i agreed with anne when she said that russians don't -- maybe don't really care if mr. putin's in power. i think most russians -- i mean, a million to 2 million have left since the war began, and they obviously are fiercely opposed to mr. putin, but he, according to opinion polls, he's maintained apart are from september when there was an attempted mobilization when his support plunged by 30 to 40% overnight, he's maintained support and, of course, polls in a society like russia are not -- are not completely by any means trustworthy. he seems to have support of 80% roughly of russians up to now. so no, i'm not particularly surprised and i do think that some of what based on my month in russia, some of what i've been reading and hearing about

putin being irrevocably undermined, putin being on the way out. putin being in deep trouble. yeah, this was an uncomfortable little incident to say the least, but i would be very cautious with thinking that we are close to the end of vladimir putin. >> so is your implication that prigozhin misread the situation or do you buy his statement that he was worry that russia was killing its own people and he was just doing this as a protest. he never meant this as a coup? >> i think he's been very angry, genuinely angry. i think the troops that were sent to the front at the beginning of the war, they were woefully inequipped and the organization of the invasion was criminally inept. so i think prigozhin has had every reason to be angry. quite what he intended, he didn't use the word coup.

a former general did use the word attempted coup. i think he wanted to demonstrate his anger and the anger of wagner troops at some of the ineptitude and uncertainty and half measures that we've seen in ukraine. i mean, the last 16 months have not been a happy military story for russia. now, what he ultimately intended i don't think anybody knows. i think he at some point feared for his life, possibly his family's life, and decided to call it off. where and how he will resurface, we don't know. i see that lavrov said today that, you know, wagner operations will continue and will continue across africa, but we need to, i think wait a day

or two to see if he resurfaced and where and in what condition. there are stories in the russian media today that far from the charges against him of treason being dropped, they are still in place. so we have to see. >> in talking about going off of what roger was saying about opinion polls and obviously you can't trust them entirely because -- we all know the reasons. what about the people that were seen taking photos with prigozhin? you know, when we have our reporters in russia and we ask them questions about vladimir putin on camera, they either are very flowery about putin, or they demure. they don't want to be on camera. hear it's so unusual to see people in russia of late doing something that could be seen as against the regime. and certainly cheering on prigozhin, taking selfies with him on camera, i mean, from my vantage point, it would seem surprising. tell me if i'm wrong. >> no, i think you're not wrong,

and i would just add that it's not just that the opinion polls are sort of dubious or we can't trust them, i know people who do some polling inside russia, if you do it by phone, nine out of ten people hang up. so that means that any polling that you're seeing is the 10% of people who are willing to talk to pollsters. so it's not a very good sample. this is polls across the board, doesn't matter who's conducting them. i mean, you're in a society where people answer either basically because they're afraid because they think this is what they're supposed to say, because they don't know that there are any alternatives. there's putin or chaos, that's the choice they've been given. so i think basing any estimation of his popularity on that is wrong, and i agree with you the striking thing about saturday was that people were happy to see the wagner mercenaries. they were happy to have -- do selfies with them, particularly in the afternoon, this was after

putin had made his kind of blood curdling speech on saturday morning, this is 1917 and there's a spread of civil war. you didn't see people bothered by that. you see them interested in supporting them and talking to them, and i think actually prigozhin has language that is very appealing, particularly to people in the military, saying that, you know, everything you've heard is all this stuff about empire and, you know, it's all rubbish. really this war is all about money, and that's something that ordinary russians understand. >> anne applebaum, roger cohen, what a great conversation. thank you, both. coming up next, what the upriing in russia and putin's reaction to it could mean for president biden's re-election. you're watching msnbc's special coverage of what is happening in russia. is happening in russia

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policy decisions in the russia-ukraine war? nbc's mark murray joins us now. mark, i want to play some sound from trump this weekend and ask you about it on the other side. >> when i was president, the world was stable and calm because america was respected and strong. now as we see in russia and all of these other places this whole world is on fire. this world is on fire. before i even arrive at the oval office i will have the horrible war between russia and ukraine totally settled. i'll have it done in 24 hours. >> so that leads me to the question of whether or not this is going to be a situation where having rallied the allies behind ukraine, this looks good for joe biden, or conversely does it add to a sense of unease from some voters that maybe hurts him or that they're listening more to donald trump? >> yeah. you know, and chris, our latest

nbc news poll that just came out over the weekend shows a very, very competitive hypothetical match-up between president biden and donald trump, with biden leading just by four percentage points. very close to what we ended up seeing in the 2020 election. and when it comes to the situation in russia and as well as ukraine, i think one of the profound public policy matters that is completely a jump ball on who ends up winning the presidential contest if it is between joe biden and donald trump is the situation in ukraine where a donald trump victory and a donald trump administration would have a completely different course of action than we've seen from president biden as well as actually from other republicans who are running for the presidency. and i think that clip you just played from donald trump underscored that. but also when it comes to just the instability across the world of course everything is up in the air right now. everything does matter in a

very, very close race. >> a lot of the different republican presidential candidates have weighed in on the war in ukraine. we had desantis at one point calling it a regional conflict and saying it's not a priority for america. others in the race pushed back against that. president biden, though, and as chris was saying in that great question up top, really did a lot to -- or the white house says he did a lot to fortify the nato alliance and to keep it together when it was assumed by vladimir putin potentially that it would break apart, that they wouldn't have the -- they wouldn't be able to stand together for as long as they did, they'd roll over and allow him to do what he wanted in ukraine. president biden gets a lot of credit for doing that. do the voters see that as credit for biden or do they see it as chris said as what's going on around the world they say god it looks terrible out there, we need new leadership? >> there's a couple ways to look at it. our polls didn't test this but in polls i've actually seen president biden does get some of his highest scores from voters

on how he's handled the situation in ukraine, certainly higher than we've seen on the economy and immigration for the president. but overall he's actually kind of gotten low marks on competency, on being a commander in chief. that's i think a situation that remains to be seen. >> mark murray, thank you so much. always good to see you, my friend. >> that will wrap up our special two-hour coverage. thank you for joining me and chris. andrea mitchell picks up with more news after a very quick break. break. (pensive music) (birds tweeting) (pensive music) (broom sweeping) - [narrator] one in five children worldwide are faced with the reality of living without food. no family dinners, no special treats, no full bellies. all around the world, parents are struggling

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right now on "andrea mitchell reports," the fallout from a stunning weekend in russia. wagner group leader yevgeni prigozhin's bold challenge to vladimir putin, advancing to moscow's doorstep only to back down at the last minute and a deal brokered by the leader of belarus, a key ally of putin, raising questions about t