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Welcome to The Restless Politics, emergency podcast with me, Rory Stewart and me, Alistair Campbell.

And we've got Alistair in his kitchen about to go to a wedding, so he's going to get in real trouble from the family.

If they find out, he's got half an hour before he's got a rush off for his wedding.

But what's happened and the reason we've hit the emergency podcast button is the developments in Russia and Ukraine.

Absolutely astonishing.

Proshkin, who is the sometimes called Putin chef, and who's this very sinister figure who was in jail for nine years,

essentially part of Russian criminal gangs in the 1980s, runs this group called The Wagner Group,

which has provided 25,000 of the fighting soldiers in Ukraine.

And he has now turned around and effectively launched something between a mutiny and a coup d'état,

where he's announced that he's captured the largest Russian military base,

Rostov on Don, on the front line, and is demanding the dismissal of the senior military commanders.

What do you make of it all, Alistair? What's your sense of it?

It's very, very hard to know what to make of it.

He's a fascinating character.

He spent a lot of time in jail in the past, a bit of a crook, got close to the very oligarch class.

He became known as Putin chef because he was, there are actually pictures of him.

I remember him serving George Bush at a dinner with him.

He was actually the guy. There's a picture of him leaning over Bush as Bush is talking to Putin.

There's another picture of him leaning over Putin as he's serving him food.

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