I'm Hannah Rosen.

This is Radio Atlantic.

Over the weekend, something wild happened in Russia.

A man named Yvgeny Pregozion seemed to start a rebellion.

His private army, the Wagner Group, fights alongside Russian troops in Ukraine.

But this weekend, they turned their guns against Russia itself.

They took over a major southern city called Rostov and then pledged to March on Moscow,

making it hundreds of miles before turning around.

Was this a mutiny?

Was it a failed coup?

People are debating Pregozion's motives and whether he thought he had internal support.

Zooming out though, what it means is that one man, a guy who was in prison, then became

a hot dog salesman and then rose up to become a loyal protégé of President Vladimir Putin

and turned on Putin, humiliated him, and somehow survived.

We've been told that Pregozion is now in Belarus.

Anyway, the news is moving quickly and there's been a lot of speculation.

Two people I trust to ground us, are Atlantic staffwriters, Ann Applebaum and Tom Nichols.

So Tom, the past week's events in Russia have been called a coup and a mutiny, however

you referred to it as a falling out among gangsters.

How did you mean by that?

The problem is that the Russian state is a conglomeration of power players who are much

like the five families in the old godfather movie that these are mobsters and Putin is the

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