we begin with the stunning events in Russia where President Vladimir Putin's power is in question the crisis unfolded this weekend in the form of a military rebellion led by Putin's former Ally avenji pregosian the leader of Russia's largest private military company called Wagner progosian staged an armed Mutiny seizing control of the Strategic city of rostov and marched his Convoy to within a hundred miles of Moscow so close authorities had to deploy tanks and troops in defense shattering the appearance of stability Putin has cultivated for the last 25 years he's been in power fueling once Unthinkable doubts about his power grip on the country Wagner's military group became an important part of Putin's war on Ukraine but pagosian also became increasingly vocal in his anger and frustration over the way Russia's military has waged the war the Rebellion though ended less than 24 hours after it began with progosian ordering his troops to turn back in order to avoid spilling Russian blood in his first remarks since the Revolt the mercenary leader said he never intended to seize power with his march on Moscow President Putin today accused the soldiers of treason and is vowing to punish those involved in the uprising all of it creating instability for Russia and questions about what's next for Putin to answer that I'm joined by Alan Sanders professor emeritus of political science at St Peter's university Professor Sanders always good to talk to you this Uprising has really posed an unprecedented challenge to Putin's power and pierced what folks are calling sort of the aura around his power grip on Russia since he you know came to office what type of threat does this really risk for his regime and the hold he has on Russia well the reality is we don't really know and that's part of the concern now uh our secretary of state Anthony blinken has said that we've seen obviously cracks in the facade we just don't know how deep those cracks are but what's clear is that the Russian military really didn't respond very well to what we've observed I mean progozin took over a Southern military headquarter in Russia uh he was cheered by the citizens or by some of the citizens anyway and he marched right up very close to Moscow so one has to wonder what does the Russian military uh really do and how effective is it today uh pagosian put out an 11-minute audio statement that I'm still processing as we speak but essentially saying that his mercenaries intervened because Russian forces killed 30 of his members but we don't have a whole lot else on where exactly he is where Putin is more details about this 11th Hour deal that was struck um what do we know though well I mean we know that the Russian military didn't respond very well to the march by pagosan's uh Wagner group up towards Moscow we also know that Putin issued a very strong statement accusing per goes into being a traitor but then he backed off and said well pergozin wouldn't be punished nor would members of his Wagner military unit um so we really uh I mean this you know Putin is a master of this information progozin himself is a master of this information the one thing that we should watch for however is pragosan aimed his criticism at the military establishment chief of staff garasimov and Minister of Defense shoigu we'll have to see whether shoigu and garasimoth survive in the days ahead that'll perhaps will tip us off to something of the uh you know Shenanigans and the manipulations that are going on in the Kremlin so watch for sure watch for grass moth watch for what happens to them and then of course watch for uh what happens to pagosan Putin is known to sue his perceived enemies in foreign lands whether it's Belarus or England as we well know so all these are things to watch let me just ask you before you go what type of global ripple effect could this have and of course I'm thinking about the war efforts in Ukraine well certainly it'll have effects in Ukraine I mean the ukrainians are saying they're taking advantage of what they perceive to be the chaos in Russia the other things to watch for is we don't want a completely destabilized Russia now we don't know how destabilize it is at this point but a completely destabilized Russia would be a huge problem for the United States and for all other countries because Russia is a nuclear power and so what would be happening to its nuclear armaments the other things to watch for is the Wagner group the group that Mr pagosian has been leading into battle in Ukraine is also active in Africa it's a very brutal I mean it's a very effective group but it's also a very brutal group and it's been involved in all kinds of battles there propping up regimes corruption making a lot of money off of gold mines and other things so we'll have to see what this means to pregosian's Wagner group as well so there are lots of things to watch Professor Alan Sanders with St Peter's university we have turned to you time and time again as this continues to unfold we thank you so much my pleasure take care