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All right, everybody, several stories, no surprise, that are among the most read on the Bloomberg have to do with Russia and the armed rebellion lad over the weekend and then the backing off, And you do wonder where do we go from here? So let's get and update some analysis. We turn to retired Major General Maston Robson, who is a geopolitical intelligence advisor to the advisory board at Academy Securities. He is on the Zoom on the Zoom on Zoom
in Greenville, Greenville, South Carolina. And then also with US is Bloomberg News National security reporter Courtney McBride on the phone in Washington, DC. Both of you, Thank you, Thank you.
Courtney.
I do want to start with you though, where are we in terms of Russia and how US government officials are viewing it and reacting in thinking about it?
Well, thanks for having me right now. The US and several of its allies and partners in Europe are all very much in a wait and see mode, emphasizing that they had nothing to do with this and that you know, any sort of leadership change or adjustments within Russia are internal. That being said, they are framing it as a pretty big shift and a potential threat to Putin's authority, though
he obviously seems to remain in power. That this raises some questions about his hold on the forces of the country and the Wagner Group, which has been a very potent tool of the of the Kremlin.
And I assume that Wagner Group will continue to be that, otherwise they face some real troubles in Ukraine. General Robson, is is that not the case that you know Russia, I mean, they're military as opposed to the Wagner Group hasn't achieved very much down there.
No, you're absolutely right, Matt. If there's anything we've learned out of this, that the Russian military, which we traditionally have thought is the number two capable military in the world, is not even the number one capable military in Russia. That the Bid Group has proved the ability to run
circles around the Russian military. So it's hard to see how who's going to get his way out of this where he maintains that military capability that he's going to lose if he completely disbands of the Bideny group and completely alienates their leader. Because unlike America and in much of the of NATO, know, we do everything on a constitutional based, democratic public concept. We take an oath of
office to support and feld the constitution. Not a certain leader, not a certain president, not a certain general, not a certain ministry of defense. That's not what Russia is built on. It's an autocratic society and that becomes very problematic when it comes to times like this, because then it becomes who's the lead I'm going to choose, not going back to the grassroots of a constitutional based society.
So general Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to I guess he's just started addressing the nation or addressing Moscow, and so we'll look for some headlines. Having said that, what are you watching out in terms of what he has to say in terms of mood, context, or just specifics.
Yeah, the big decision he has to make is can he's one Does he have to choose between his minister Defense and chief staff in the Army and the Boden Group number two. Can he sway the Russian people who seem to have become very positively supportive of the Voden Group because of this cess on the battlefield, and he makes statements that will make them say, I'm going to
ban the Widener group. I'm going to basically hold accountable the chief of the Vaden Group, even if it puts us to the disadvantage military not only in Ukraine, but in Syria and in Africa and other parts of the world where they've been very successful as his military army. That's going to be a hard self for him. So how he navigates this, I think is key. I don't really think that this has ever been a case where it was an anti Putin thing. I think this has
been a blow his level. This fight that has been going on for months between what the group believed was the right way to fight a war, the general that putin put in charge, that the Vden Group totally supported him, being removed by the Minister Defense, the chief staff of the army, and the group believed that the army is inept and then actually makes it more difficult for group to be successful and has even turned contentious where they
believe they've been targeted on the battlefield by the Russian Army at the discretion in the order of the Minister of Defense the chief staff of the Army. So it's pretty messy situation, right, and now the Putin's got to try to manufacture's way through Courtney.
What do we know about Pregoshan's claims that Soygu was mining escape routes or even planning missile attacks on Wagner camps.
Well, certainly the US officials are being very very quiet and discreet about what they have determined, and you know, in terms of intelligence, you know, as the General said, Pregosion has long been criticizing Shoigu and other Defense ministry officials.
So the real I think the real shift that we saw this weekend was his criticism of even the basis for the war, suggesting that Ukraine was never a threat and that rather than these leaders simply failing to prosecute the war correctly, it never should have occurred in the first place. And I think that was that was a huge rhetorical shift. And then obviously we saw forces on the move that was itself a very jarring and disruptive development.
Courtney, are reporting, go ahead, please, General Command.
Those are two great points, Courtney, because that's where I think Grosen overplayed his hand. He was attempting, in my opinion, to ratchet up his rhetoric of it was a Minister of Defense who gave bad advice to Putin. It was the fifth but that was a bridge too far. And then his quote unquote demonstration certainly was a bridge too far. And I think force is Putin to now as a strong man, he has to take a hard stand against that, even if it's unpopular. So I'm in total agreement Courtney.
So hard stand meaning he's going to kill pregotion. Is that pretty much Putin's only option.
I don't think his only option. I think it's just a function of how much slay he thinks. He has both of us, his senior military leadership and with his people, to be able to say, for the good in the nation, for the good of the war, for the good of what we're doing, We've got to find a way to
pass this back together. I'm not saying that's impossible. Putin has certainly proved over the decades to be pretty shrewd and how he manufactures somethings wouldn't surprise me if he could pull it off, But it's gonna be a tough lift.
General Robson, I do wonder, though, has this weakened him? Does it force Putin's hand to maybe end this war earlier rather than later.
So weakens a relative term. Does it weaken him in the eyes of the Russian people, I'm not sure it does. It definitely weakens him. I think in the eyes of the international community. I'm sure that China is looking at this going, this is exactly why we told you not to go in Ukraine, because it's gonna be a problem
for you if it doesn't really go blissfully. And that hasn't gone blissfully, and so you're gonna have other partners that have been in Russia's camp that will be ruined the fact that he's put them all in this position, and you're gonna have and the rest of the free world going, okay, how do we take advantage of this? And certainly Ukraine is going to try to take advantage of this by up ramp up their kppability, and does NATO and does US and do others say we're going
to pile them with more equipment and airplanes. I think we're going to take it pretty cautiously, because the last thing we want to do is is become another talking point for Putin In an anti American, anti NATO, anti free world, taking advantage of Putin's in Russia's weak moment.
Nonetheless, Putin can afford to continue to send troops to Ukraine. He can afford to keep this war going for years. And in terms of weakening, I mean, he still has his finger near the nuclear launch button, right, so we will always have to be wary of his power.
Absolutely, and the nuclear launch button really is the one that's most significant and impactful. Without the bottom of the group, he can certainly hold some of the positions he has. I'll have a hard time being offensive in Ukraine without the Vagner group. And I think eventually the mothers of Russia starting what's going on here?
Hey Courtney, thirty seconds?
Here?
Is there an advantage play here for US officials? What are you hearing from the NSA or from the national security side of the US government? And GED just got about thirty seconds.
Sure, they're certainly hoping that Ukraine can seize an opportunity, whether it's nearly you know, taking advantage of a distracted weekend Russia. But I think the general's absolutely right about the concern about escalating with NATO or US involvement.
We will want to point out that President putin a six minute address to his country it is over. He did say the Wagner troops can join the Russian army or go to Belarus. He said most Wagner troops are Russian patriots. They were used the mutiny organizers wanted to divide Russia, and he says that we took all measures to neutralize danger. So, Matt, a very quick statement by the Russian president. Thank you both.
Yes, you're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern Listen on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
All right, everybody, We did talk about Scarlett mentioning Kernibal as one of the biggest laggards in today's session, shares having their biggest one day drop since November sixteenth, down seven point six percent. The company to come out reporting quarterly results and an annual forecast that outperform, but many saying that they failed to keep pace with the high expectations. That has fueled a sharp rally in the stock, which is up eighty one percent so far here in twenty
twenty three. But let's get to it, because we were delighted to have with us to share some insight on the company's business. The Presidency and Chief Climate Officer of Carnival. He's Josh Weinstein and he joins us on Zoom in New York City. Josh, it's so great to have you here with Matt and myself on Bloomberg Business Week. First of all, if I may, how do you see the broader macro outlook on a day when we're spending a lot of time talking about Russia and concerns about instability there.
How do you see it and how do you kind of factor it in as you run what is a global business?
Well, thank you first of all for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you. You know, I got to be honest with you over the last call it nine months, ten months. Our trajectory has only been in one direction, and that has been up. And that is despite you know, a good amount of geopolitical uncertainty and discord, and that's you know, we're a global company and so that's part of our global trade and we adapt and we evolve and we move on. I'd say in the
last three months it's been pretty fascinating. We usually have our peak demand in bookings in the first quarter, and our first quarter is December, January February of the year, and in fact, we did have a record first quarter in bookings, highest bookings in the company's history. We thought that was great, and then we got to our second quarter and we shattered it.
And so the demand that we see is carrying on.
In the first three weeks of our third quarter, for the month of June, it hasn't stopped. And so despite the fact that there is geopolitical uncertainty, that is something that our consumers, our guests are taking in stride. And at the end of the day, they've got a desire to travel, they've got a desire for new experiences, and they have a lot of pent up demand for experience, as you know, and that plays very well into our business.
Josh.
It feels like though investors maybe think it's as good as it gets, considering the bounce back that we've seen in your share price this year. You know how it goes as someone who's been at Carnival for a while now and looked at it from several different angles. But we still have the stock down from about eighty percent from a high back in January of twenty eighteen. Is it as good as it gets? Do you think in terms of bookings and visibility right now? Oh?
Not at all? You know, you know, So the short answer is no.
It As a matter of fact, even though we're all the way back in our booking curve for our North American brands, we're still only about ninety percent back for our European brands, and so their trajectory is the same thing, going in the right direction.
But they've got a ways to run.
But to show you the strength of our portfolio of world class brands, our European brands, in the second quarter, they actually as compared to twenty nineteen, not only do they have double digit increased percentages in the volumes book for the rest of this year, for the second half of the year it was on double digit price increases. And so first quarter seven and a half points up in pricing. Second quarter of this year seven and a
half percent percent up in pricing with that demand. On a forward looking basis as wind in our back, we're very well booked for the rest of this year into the first half of next year. So with all due respect to you know, to the market. You know, any one day you're gonna have ups, you're gonna have downs.
As you said, we've been on.
A pretty big tear, about a one hundred percent or so since the start of the year. Our job is to focus on the business, focus on that demand generation, and continue to drive our business forward.
Josh Matt Miller here with Carol. What needs to happen to bring the stock back to pre pandemic levels or why hasn't it come back? Is it just that you took on a lot of debt that you have a lot of investment to do. I mean, you're trading in the teams right now, and before the pandemic hit, you were trading more like fifties sixty seventy dollars a share.
Yeah.
Well, you know, our profile has definitely been impacted by by what happened in twenty twenty and what we had to do to get through it. Frankly, you know, we were a company that entered in with probably about you know, the market cap and the and the debt. If you added it together, it's probably not too dissimilar to exactly
where we are now if you add it together. It's just that our debt, which used to be about thirteen billion dollars, is thirty three billion dollars and hence the value of the of the equity is down and it's our job over the next you know, several years to effectively transfer that back by generating free cash flow. We have a good amount of headroom to do to take that and delever and pay down debt. We have the lowest order book of new builds in frankly my history.
I've been here for twenty one years, and when I started back in November of two thousand and seven as the treasurer as one of the stops along my path here at Carnival Corporation, we had twenty four ships on order, and so our ability to generate a lot of cash and we will continue to do that and use it to delever is quite strong, to tell you the truth. Now, as far as you know, what are the other factors involved? For us, it's about getting back to not only full capacity,
full occupancy, but really leveraging our brands. Our brands are phenomenal. I mean, they are world class. We have Carnival Cruise Line as America's cruise line. Ada in Germany created modern day cruising. They own Germany Piano Cruises. In the UK they are synonymous with cruising. They have a Union Jack as their livery. We own those markets. They are very good markets for us, and they're rebounding and so the as far as I'm concerned, there's only one way that we're going, and it's up.
Can I just ask about your debt? You have a weighted average fixed coupon of six point nine to four percent, which is not bad considering where we are right now, and we're I guess, and about.
Two point nine billion maturing in twenty twenty.
Four, which is where it would be, which is much lower than it would be if you had to refinance. Now, is my point right? You guys got in on this early and filled your coffers first. Do you think that puts you at an advantage relative to your competitors.
I think we're in good shape.
You know, we've we've basically gotten to a point where We ended the quarter at about seven point two billion seven point three billion of liquidity, and we've already started to de lever. As far as we're concerned, we can always be opportunistic, we can refinance, we can look at what's available, but we as far as we see the future, we have no need to go out to the markets at this point. We can delever with the liquidity buffer that we have and starting to generate again all of
that cash flow. We do have export credits as well, so for the new bills that we do have on order, we've got about three billion dollars of very competitively priced export credit facilities ready and waiting for us if we choose to use them between now and two years from.
Now, in the middle of twenty twenty five, when our last ship is ordered.
So we're in a very strong position when it comes to our ability to manage our debt down and manage our interest expense down over time. You know, as a matter of fact, one of the one of the drivers that we had for being able to add two hundred and seventy million dollars to the bottom line in our guidance change from March to June was in fact interest expends savings from starting that process of delevering.
So we're very we're very pleased with that. With that trajectory, Well, talk.
To us about you know, Matt and I are going back and forth. We're looking at different functions here, so tell us. We want to make sure we have this right. Is it two point nine billion? Is that correct? Maturing in twenty twenty four, I was looking at some of our research.
You know what, I don't want to give you the wrong number in a live program. That's fair. We don't get back to you and we'll make sure we get it squared away for you. Well.
And the other thing is is you talked about, you know, operating good cash flow, and forgive me, we just want to make sure we're we're hitting it right too. You know the amount that the ships are not inexpensive. You guys have did a lot of replacement during the pandemic and getting rid of some of the older ships and
so on. But I do wonder, Josh, can you I don't know, what's the capex that you're looking for that you can continue to spend, which is really important, you know, certainly to your business, and can you do it with the debt load the car right detload.
Yeah.
I mean the short answer is yes, I think we can, you know, And as far as we have new build CAPEX and we have non new build CAPEX, our new build order pipeline, as I said, is the smallest we have had in anyone's memory, and so we are very well placed to be able to manage that type of CAPEX spend.
And as I mentioned, it does come with export credits packaged.
With it, should we choose to use them, as export credits are rolling off because we're paying them down every year in the normal course. On top of that new build CAPEX we've got, we've got maintenance cappex, we've got you know, making sure our ships are in good condition.
That you know, we're forecasting it's going to be you know, give or take about one point five billion for this year in twenty twenty three, and about one point seven billion on an annual basis thereafter for the foreseeable future. That profile, that entire CAPEX profile is significantly less than what we were living with how we were operating pre pause. And so that's why we're so bullish that the amount of cash flow that will be able to generate and then utilized a d lever is not insignificant.
You know, we're basically.
Planning between twenty four, twenty five and twenty six something in the magnitude of about five billion of cash from operations, where if you net out all these with the capex, with the debt, export credits coming in, export credits getting paid off, we anticipate over over eight billion dollars will be available for us to be able to de lever. And that's on top of it, you know, a couple a couple billion.
We're doing this year.
Josh. One thing I want to ask you, and you mentioned this too, that you know, among the different hats that you've worn at Carnival, and you've been there, I think almost twenty years. I think I'm right.
If I'm looking at it, twenty one one.
Is treasure and so you you understand the importance of the financial side of that. Having said that, I am also curious when you, you know, look at what really moves the bottom line. You know, when people come on board, Yep, it's the tickets, but it's also excursions and other things. Are they upping the spend ahead of time that gives you even greater visibility and that's where you make a lot of money.
Oh, it absolutely is. You know.
We've made a concerted effort over you know, since since getting back in our restart to really augment the onboard spend profile.
And we can do that through several mechanisms. You know. One of them is the fact is the inflationary environment.
If you think about twenty nineteen to twenty twenty three, people are used to paying more when they go into their local restaurant, their local bar, local entertainment, and so we have adjusted our pricing accordingly for similar experiences and that's taken just fine with the consumer.
We're not being out of the ordinary. As a matter of fact, our service levels are so much better than what you can find on land based alternatives that it's a great value. On top of that, we're finding different ways to forward that spend, as you were referring to, and we can do that by bundled ticket prices with onboard packages. We can sell people specific packages, whether that's beverage or spa packaging, and.
They're buying it, and they're buying it ahead of time.
Oh they are, they are. It's you know, we've made about a step change for us. But a remarkable opportunities to do more. I want to say that it's about sixty percent increase per person per day the amount of our onboard spend that's being purchased before you get on the ship.
Now, that's great, but it is.
Still a minority of our overall onboard spend revenue. So we've got a tremendous opportunity to keep that momentum going by finding different ways to get people to want to put down money for those experiences in advance.
All right, don't kill me, Josh, But thirty seconds left here, do you guys think about recession? Are you factoring the possibility of a recession?
Just quickly?
Yeah? We do, you know we that's part of our job.
The great thing about our business and our company is number one, we are well booked. We're about at any one time about fifty percent book for the next twelve months, and obviously that's much more weighted in the first half. On top of that, we are an outrageous value when you compare us to land anywhere from twenty five to fifty percent, and that boats very well when people are thinking about how do I maintain commuication?
Forgive me, I got to run because the computer is going to take me out. Josh, come back soon. Josh Weinstein, President and CEO and chief Climate Officer at Carnival Corporation. On Zoom in New York City. This is Bloomberg Radio.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Easter on Bloomberg Radio, the Bloomberg Business app, and YouTube. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
You do want to get into a little bit more in terms of China, India, Russia. David Riedal is president of Retal Research Group, which has analysts on the ground around the globe in some fifteen countries covering companies in those areas, and he is just back from India. So, David, great to have you here with Matt and myself. You're joining us on Zoom in San Francisco. So where to begin? Where to begin?
Russia?
Begin?
Not begin in Russia?
Well, I am curious when your clients call you, where do they begin.
Well, they usually begin with China, and more recently they'll talk a little bit about India, but they will talk about the impact of Russia on those countries. You know, Indias and China both have tried to tried a pretty fine line, China a little bit more in support of Russia, India kind of trying to play both sides.
Both of them are big oil.
Importers, so it's important for them to maintain a relationship with Russia.
Does the mutiny though, that we witnessed over the weekend, and I guess the solution into that problem have any impact on your markets?
I don't think so at this point.
You know, it all wrapped up over the weekend, so we didn't really see its impact on trading. I think, you know, a lot of people were surprised overnight when that protest or that rebellion or whatever it was took place, but it seemed like it was people were pretty satisfied by Monday morning.
Well, it is interesting too that you did have China's Foreign Ministry saying it supports Russia's actions to maintain national stability. A brief statement by a ministry spokesperson who said, it's Russi's internal affairs, but it's just like China saying, wait, we got stuff going on too, and it's our internal affairs.
That's one of their favorite favorite phrases. As you know, they think that the Taiwan straight is their domestic waters. They think that the Taiwan issue is a domestic issue. Of course, they think the Weager issue and the Tibet issue and the Hong Kong issue are all internal affairs. So they don't like the idea of people being involved in other people's domestic activities.
But I guess, just to follow internal they don't have.
A problem with China being involved in Ukraine's domestic activities.
I know, but these people always pick and choose when it's wrong and when it's right when they're doing it, I guess.
It's okay, well pick and choose for us. I mean, in terms of I guess we're all trying to as international investors, trying to understand which internal affairs become global affairs become global investment stories. So how do you kind of play that out?
Well.
One of the things that I think we've seen over the last five years is really people questioning the sensibleness, the reasonableness of having so many supply chains linked back to one country, China. I think COVID and the breakdown and supply chains really reminded people how much risk we were taking on having so much of our economy connected
back to one economy. So I think you've got a lot of people looking around the world for alternative places to manufacture, whether that's Indonesia or Brazil or Mexico a country that we really like, or increasingly India. India has made some really major fundamental changes in their policies and the way that they run their country that I think are changing the growth trajectory for that country, and they are definitely set to benefit from people diversifying away from China.
They've got the large population that one point four billion people, they've got the right demographics, a lot more young people in India, and they are a positioned to perhaps take some of that manufacturing activity and some of those supply chains from China.
But still issues tell us about you just back, what were you doing, who were you visiting, What did you want to see? Specifically? There's stuff you can get on the ground that you cannot get from afar.
It was fascinating. I was mostly in Bombay and the area around Mumbai, and it was amazing to see how much infrastructure they're building. One of the frustrations with India for a long time was that the national government couldn't mobilize enough tax resources across the country to build the
infrastructure that they needed in the big cities. India's, of course, are very lowlarge democracy, largest democracy in the world, but that meant that some of those voters expected to have infrastructure projects in their provinces, in their cities, in their villages, and so that really left the capital cities Delhi and the big city like Mumbai without a lot of money for infrastructure. Boy, has that changed. They really changed their tax basis a few years ago, looking at goods and
services tax that's much simplified. And they are on a building spree, building a huge elevated train through huge parts of Bombay and really spending a lot of money on infrastructure, which is sorely needed.
What about the middle class? What's the trajectory looked like there? You know China, obviously that was a massive part of the story over the past twenty years. So is it going to look the same way in India?
You know, I think it's going to You almost always have a situation where rising wages drive the development of a middle class. If you've got enough deployment for those people, that'll drive demand for motorcycles and then eventually cars, it'll drive for apartments and eventually houses, life insurance and other sort of products that come with that rising wealth. So I think you'll see pretty much the same trajectory in India that we saw in China, perhaps not as smooth
a road. China, having a very centrally planned and organized economy, had the advantage of really driving through a lot of the changes that they wanted to make without worrying too much about voters and the getting other people involved in the decision making. So India as a democracy, perhaps stronger institutions, but maybe a little bit a few more fits and starts on their road to prosperity.
David, I'm going to probably sound pretty naive, but yeah, I'm going to just go for it. India, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia. Money trumps all. Investment opportunities trump all even if we have some problem about our concerns about internal affairs in a part of the country or in part of the world.
It does you know, people investors are looking for opportunities around the world and I think they're looking for opportunities for something to surprise to the upside. I think if you look at a Saudi or something like that, that's a country that's pretty much a one trick pony in most ways. It's really a hydrocarbons play. It's a country like an Indonesia or a Brazil or in this case, India, has a diverse and deep and developing economy that has the ability to really create a cycle of value when
money comes into the system. It has things that it can invest in, and has a domestic market that can be growing. And so that's the kind of environment you're looking for, the large population with relatively stable government that's on a new trajectory of growth. And I think that's what people are starting to see in India today.
But I guess my point is that if there's an opportunity to make money, I'm thinking about, you know, I'm going to go back to Saudi Arabia that we all kind of forgot about, you know, or many have you know, the killing of Jamal Koshogi. And yet you know, we're seeing you know, the PGA tour and live golf, like it's just when there's money to be made or opportunities that we kind of turn and look the.
Other way it.
Unfortunately, I think that's true, and I think that's been true with regard to our enthusiasm for China for many years, really thinking that changing in involving them more in the global fabric and the global business fabric was going to change their behavior, and it really didn't. So I think that people do need to be careful who they're investing with,
who they're investing alongside. But in a growing environment, maybe you could pick some winners that don't have as much downside or as much baggage.
All right, very interesting stuff. India must be the best of those options that Carol listed, right, and they happen to have the best growth trajectory as far as we can see from this point.
They really do. It's amazing.
A lot of people haven't followed this story, but over the last ten years they did iris scans and fingerprints of every single citizen, which created an environment where they could open four hundred million new bank accounts, and it created a system where the government can distribute all their benefits, payments and things like that electronically directly to the consumer, not through other governments, which tend to foster a lot
of corruption, so they've really stitched together a digitized and mostly cash list economy that's much more efficient for taxation and for growth.
David, Yes or nos? Is a point that maybe five ten years from now, we look back and we're going to say this has been the world turn from China to India very quickly.
Yes or no, it's going to happen. It's already happening today. It's bound to happen.
All right, listen, so good to check in with you as always. David Redal, He's present and founder of Retal Research Group on zoom from San Francisco. I do think about this, Matt, these turning points in our world.
Yeah, it does potentially feel like we've hit that. As David said, from his perspective, we already have.
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It does seem like everywhere we're talking about what's going on in Russia. So we wanted to get to Angela Stent who really understands President Putin. She's written a book. It was published in twenty nineteen, Putin's World, Russia Against the West and with the Rest. She's a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former National intelligence officer for Russian Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council. She also served in the Office of Policy Planning at the US
Department of State. She has been a go to I say it a million times throughout the Russian invasion and war in Ukraine. So I'm so delighted that we could actually get some time with her today. You've been so generous to Bloomberg today, So Angela, thank you, thank you for finding time from me in me as well. Where are we now with this and his President Putin?
Weekend?
So I just watched a short clip of Putin meeting I guess just very recently, with his top officials, including the Defense Minister. So that answered questions about whether the Defense minister still had his job. And Putin just told his assembled colleagues there, we need to get down to work, and then of course they cut away and we didn't see the rest of it, and he put out a statement earlier today six minutes.
Oh, oh, statement, Okay, this isn't his comments, go ahead, sorry.
No, this is a statement where he said, you know, he thanked the Russian people for standing by the constitution and they're all great patriots and this is how they managed to weather this threat. But then he did, you know, he condemned the people in Wagner who had carried out
this mutiny. And so I'm not completely you sure that the deal we were told about on Saturday, where you've got any Progosion, the head of Wagner would not be prosecuted, and that the Wagner fighters could all join the you know, the Russian military now the regular military. I'm not sure whether that deal will hold. So all we know is that Putin is back, he's met with officials. We're over
the mutiny. Now, we don't know where Progosion is. He put out a statement he Progosion earlier on you know, saying that it was never his intention to overthrow the government and so, but we have no proof that he's in Bielarus, although that's allegedly where he is.
Yeah, he seems to be walking back his mutiny, and Putin seems to be walking back the deal. He reportedly made because he says, these organizers the rebellion, they betrayed their country and their people. They betrayed those who were dragged into the crime, lied to them, pushed them to death under fire. You can't say that about some unless you're going to prosecute them. And of course, according to Russian news media, they are still officially investigating these people.
Who is one person Progosian?
Right?
I also wonder is Progosian in a powerful place? Because you know, you and I were talking earlier, he does have a pretty serious military force behind him. He's the only thing that's gone right in the Russian invasion of Ukraine for Putin. If you get rid of the Wagner group, you just have these losers left.
Yeah.
I mean, certainly his fighters did the bulk of the fighting in Ukraine, particularly around Bathmoot for the last almost year, which they finally took. But he doesn't seem to be in a very strong position now, because you know, he did turn back. I think there is some question about how he and his troops managed to get within one hundred and twenty miles of Moscow without there was as he put on this statement today, there was a little bit of firing on them from helicopters, but basically they
made it through without any resistance. So that would indicate that you know, there's some support there, or at least not the will or the ability to stop them. But because we don't know where he is, and because Putin has now signaled again that you know he's going to go after the leaders of this insurrection, of this mutiny, I would say it's quite questionable still what's going to
happen to him. And I think we have to wait and see whether we actually see Precussion resurface in person and whether he's around in a few weeks.
I mean, I think it's interesting, and we don't know why yet he turned around. That's the big question mark over this right. But what we've learned over the last few days is that Russia has a seemingly weak army, much weaker than we may have thought previously, because some private faction can get all the way up to Moscow
without problems. We were talking a little bit earlier with Major General Roberson Robson, who said he thinks that Progosion should stay in Rostov, should go back to Rostov and hold that spot because it's so important militarily, what do you think, well, I mean.
And he managed to take over the garrison there. But clearly the issue is that because Pregossion for months has been criticizing the Ministry of Defense and particularly the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff for their incompetence, this is why they wanted to dissolve at least parts of Wagner and make those Vadner troops that
were fighting in Ukraine joined the regular Russian Army. And that of course is why pregaussion that was the I think the occasion of his kind of march on Moscow was to stop that from happening. So, I mean, we've seen the Russian armed forces have not performed well in Ukraine, much worse than we thought they had, so that, you know, we've known that for some time. But I think maybe this mutiny, this failed mutiny, has rein force the fact the weakness of the Russian Army.
Hey, if you were back at the National Intelligence Council and advising the President and his team, what would you do be telling them about Russia specifically and where what the US needs to be doing? And do you think that this will ultimately lead to a quicker end of the war in Ukraine.
Well, I think certainly the Biden administration was right to say that, you know, this is a domestic Russian affair, to make that clear. Even though today the Russian Foreign Minister lover Of accused the US somehow of having spies them in the Vadner Group, I think that was correct. I think showing up the allies, and I think that they've been doing that the last few days. And I think redoubling our efforts, the US efforts to help the Ukrainians win this war, because with all of the uncertainty
in Russia, you know, this is a top priority. I personally would have advised them in the next month's some at native some in willing US that more should be done to offer Ukraine a perspective for membership in NATO, even if it's not going to happen now. Those discussions, I think is still going on. But I think we need to redouble our efforts, and we need to supply the Ukrainians with the weapons that they need and that they've been asking for.
Yes or no. Bottom line is President putin weaker Yes. Love you, Thank you so much, angelas stant You're amazing. Can't wait for the next book. Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, former national intelligence officer from Russia and Eurasia. As we said our twenty nineteen book Putin's World, Russia against the West and with the rest joining us via zoom from Washington, DC. What a great lineup. Yeah, like I'm getting the full picture when it comes to what's going on.
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