 Dramatic developments in Russia on Friday and Saturday as Evgeny Prigoz and chief of the Wagner group rolled into a southern city and was charged with inciting armed rebellion. Tensions and violence have escalated in Sudan and spread to Kadhuli, the capital of the South Kordofan state, forcing more people to flee the conflict-ridden country. At first it was just angry social media posts. In the VRs of Saturday, the Russian mercenary chief Evgeny Prigozin rolled into Rostov-on-Don, a city in southern Russia. His demands and goals are unclear, but he has gone beyond the usual provocative statements about Russia's military establishment. By Saturday, Russia took strong measures to keep him at bay, but it could be other parts of the world which feel the impact of these developments. Of course, this is a rapidly developing story and could change by the time you view it, but with what we know now, we speak with Praveep Pukaista, editor-in-chief NewsClick. Praveep, the chief of the Wagner group has made many statements, many actions according to the report. How reliable are these reports which say that it's a coup and that he's a big threat to Putin? Well, I don't think it is a coup because Putin is still very much there and this is taking place in Rostov-on-Don. Therefore, it's not the major arena of in and around Moscow. So that's one part of it. Second part of it is Putin is already on record saying that this is bogus and he has to back off completely. And this is something which is essentially against the interest of the state. Apart from calling him traitor, he has virtually said everything else. So that is very much there. Question is, who is Prigoshin and can it upset the Russian state? I don't think it can unless there are other breaks which we don't know about and there are inner fault lines which we don't know about. At the moment, it seems to be very much a aberration. A, of course, should they have dependent on this kind of formation which is what the Wagner formation is. The Wagner is, I believe, how it's pronounced. The Wagner formation is, it's equivalent to what you had in the US. You had also Prince, there was an Eric Prince, though he had his private army which was used in Iraq and it actually did atrocities for which there was a lot of publicity at that stage. But he continues to lead that formation which is still there and it provides arms services in various countries which Wagner also does, for instance, in Africa. But having used them in the Ukraine war, it's also true that in Mahmud, for instance, he got a lot of publicity that he was in the forefront of the war, not that he was a participant, but his forces were. And in Mahmud, the publicity he got made him a figure in Russia and we saw also that he started criticizing that they were not getting enough arms and ammunition and the Russian army, some of the generals are not cooperating with him. So obviously, he felt that he had now achieved the status by which he could take on the army generals, the defense minister, maybe all of it. In his statement, he has not directly attacked Putin, but he has attacked the defense minister. So that's where it stays at the moment. What his objectives are? Is he, does he think there'll be something which will cause the Russian state to break down and make him the leader? All unanswered questions at the moment. If you ask my personal opinion, I think it is significant because it shows cracks which we don't know about that is coming out. So yes, to that extent, it's important. Will it make any difference to what's happening between the Russia and Ukraine and NATO? I think not. Do I think that Russia will overcome this crisis on the face of it? Looking at what all we know, it seems to be yes, unless there is something which we don't know about and there are factions within the Russian state which we have no idea about. Then of course, it's different if he has allies which who then come out later. So those are the imponderables at the moment. But looking at what Frigodin has been saying for some time we've been listening about him for the last three, four months, particularly in Bakhmut and his various interpretive attacks on generals and others, various comments that he has made. He seemed to be always a bit of a loose cannon. So at the moment, is it something which is the continuation of his behavior as a loose cannon? That is something we have to see. Or are there deeper fissures within the Russian state which we don't know. It's a first manifestation of fissure of this kind after Putin has taken power. So it's significant to that extent, even if it does not have a long-term impact. It is something which is going to create a certain degree of instability within the Russian state. So that I think is to be taken for granted. Yes, it's not a minor issue. But in terms of the stability, I don't think that's going to be a significant issue, not on the face of it. Right, Khabib. What do you think about the timing of this particular incident? Russia is still dealing with it. But the timing, is it going to impact? Could you elaborate on whether you think the impact on Ukraine could be significant as well, not just in Russia? You know, the interesting part is what he has talked about the Ukraine war flies in the face of all that we know about it at the moment. The new offensive, we have already talked about, even the western media is today more or less admitting that Ukraine's thrust, this new offensive that they were supposed to have launched with a lot of fanfare, with a lot of arms and weapons that had been given by the NATO countries. All of that doesn't seem to have played a major role in making inroads into what the Russian-held territories are. So, given that the statement that Brigadier made, oh, you know, there's a huge defeat. Yes. All this kind of statement doesn't seem to make sense. Again, there's so much of material that's today out in public domain, mainly because of the kind of channels that exist. Telegram, for instance, in Russia and Ukraine, you have also something you can see by satellite, a lot of what is going on. So, even private satellite images are available. We show a lot. So, given this, it's very difficult to understand why Brigadier is saying, oh, they have broken through, this has happened, that has happened, this has been a disaster, doesn't seem to square it with reality if it did. We'd have heard it from all the leading bourgeois papers in the world. So, the fact that the New York Times doesn't say it, Washington Post doesn't say it, Financial Times doesn't say it. In fact, all of them are taking a much more, much sober down position than they used to do earlier. So, given that, I think this is again part of Brigadier playing to a gallery, which we don't know about, or the man is, shall we say, not fully in touch with reality. Again, difficult to say why a person is doing it. You can talk of larger forces. Individuals are not predictable. So, given that, we don't know. But let's see what happens. The pictures that show, yes, that he has seemed to have occupied a particular military building in Rostov-on-Don. So, that is there. So, I think that he has done something. But the repercussions of this is what happens to him. That's not so important, because I don't think he will go anywhere with this. But Wagner has a major impact in Africa. It is providing security service to a number of states who've actually kicked out, for instance, French and other forces to provide those services, which they're doing earlier. What happens to Wagner's role in Africa is, again, something we'll have to watch. It's there, I think, it is going to weaken Russia and Russia's play in terms of international politics. All right, Pabit, thanks very much. And this is a story we'll be watching. The war in Sudan has already uprooted over 2.5 million people. But the fighting between the army and the rapid support forces has just spread to new areas. A rebel group in the South Gordefond state broke a long-standing ceasefire agreement and attacked an army unit. El Janina in West Darfur was also recently hit hard by the escalating conflict. The negotiated truces in many parts of Sudan have fallen through. Prashant from People's Despite joins us now with more. Prashant, can we start with discussing the current situation in Sudan right now? Right, so Pragya, we know that the fighting broke out on April 15th. This is fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and the rapid support forces who are a paramilitary group. But as people have pointed out on Twitter there, actually the militias which took part in the genocide in Darfur many, many years ago. So it was those militias which formed the rapid support forces. So this fighting broke out on April 15th and we've had at least two major truces since then. One was in the end of May and one was very recently. That is, it ended on the 21st of June if I'm not mistaken. That's Wednesday I think. So in both these truces, what happened was both the warring parties agreed to certain commitments and these commitments were that they would not recoup or try to escalate the conflict. They would allow the passage of humanitarian aid etc etc. But all these commitments seem to have been violated in both these truces. And if you look for instance at our recent article that we published by written by our colleague Pawan, the Sudanese Communist Party source who spoke to us makes that point very clear that both these ceasefires were used as opportunities to actually for these both the warring forces to kind of consolidate and regroup. That was really the way in which these ceasefires were used. And so on we expected lines after the ceasefire ended, the fighting broke out. It has kind of been very intense. Now both the warring parties have committed their own sets of crimes. We need to be very clear about that. On the one hand we know that the Sudanese armed forces has been using the air force a lot. Now one way in which the Sudanese armed forces let us call it the armed forces is superior is that it has an air force capacity. So it has been using this air force a lot to attack what are essentially civilian neighborhoods where the RSF forces have been. So this has been charged levied against them time and again and it is pretty clear that they are doing that. If you look at the rapid support forces on the other hand they have been accused of a number of crimes including the murder of the governor of one of the provinces and also the fact that instances of loot, violence, even rape for that matter all of them have been attributed to the rapid support forces. So both parties really escalating over the past nearly two and a half months really escalating this cycle of violence. I think the number of people who died has probably crossed around a thousand or three thousand if I am not mistaken in fact. And the fears are that this number could be even higher. And a huge number of people injured I think the number of refugees has crossed 2.5 million and a large part of it is internally displaced of course but still a substantial number of people going to countries in the vicinity. Now this is also dangerous because the fact that the countries in the vicinity themselves are very poor so they are already struggling but now they have to struggle with the refugee issue as well. So all this together makes it a very violent situation and I think activists and observers there have kind of expressed the fear that this fighting may be allowed to fester like it has in many countries in the region for instance Libya is a prime example of a country which has been in persistent war for many many years not for 10 years since NATO and its allies intervened. So there is a very strong fear that this might kind of be the case in Sudan as well because the fact that it seems to be caught in the cycle on the one hand there is fighting then the US and Saudi Arabia countries like that they sort of bring about a truce you know they all these high high sounding statements are made sure and then fighting breaks out. I think the US itself at least is kind of you know begin to begin to maintain that it is not seeing a way out of this. So again there might be other regional attempts which continue but there is a very stark fear that this fighting could actually go in the long term. So you know that is really a huge concern and this would be disastrous for a country like Sudan which is already facing a variety of crisis you know there is a climate crisis the economic crisis which people have been struggling for you know for decades to deal with all these crisis together and put war on top of that and then what happens is that you have a complete mess so to speak and others people responsible for this mess are the leaders of these military forces the top leadership of these military forces which unfortunately these military forces are in power because everyone was happy engaging with them until now. So it's important to remember that that these military forces were considered key players in Sudan's political scene everyone you know kept encouraging them and gave them you know full legitimacy and now these now they now it seems kind of strange that everyone is kind of condemning them or sitting or saying that you know we need peace whereas these signs were there for the longest time. So you know keeping all that together it's a quite a depressing scene I would say overall in Sudan also one must note that the Darfur province has there's been a huge amount of violence there it's in some sense is very closely linked but almost like all the slightly different track a lot of the armed groups which were associated with the RSF for instance there's been fighting among some of them the RSF has been very closely involved in the fighting in Darfur so the rival groups in those regions are now fighting among themselves. This is a long conflict we talked about the genocide earlier this is a long conflict and now this is again intensified so another cycle of violence in Darfur as well which makes it really a very difficult situation there a lot of the people there are already in internally displaced people camps their refugees basically internal refugees so many of these people are at doubled risk because the fact that the fighting has broken out over there also reports of fighting breaking out in the Kordofan region as you said so all this together you know I think multiple conflicts brewing right now within Sudan all of them connected and a very difficult time indeed for Sudan's people. Right Prashant you mentioned the Sudanese Communist Party they also said something about how to resolve the problem where the US is not playing a very positive role and also why are the peace agreements not holding up to the promise that they held out. Right I think two or three things one is that when we talk about let's look at the peace agreements first I mean not about the current ceasefires which have kind of not worked out but even earlier you know after 2021 which was when Omar al-Bashir was overthrown there was and there was a very clear question before Sudan which was that in which direction would Sudan go would the natural direction or logic of the protests which overthrew Omar al-Bashir be accepted and the natural logic of those protests was that Omar al-Bashir and his military regime would have to be overthrown they would have to be democracy in Sudan based on the demands of the protests which took place against Omar al-Bashir right that is better that was the natural logic of it right but that natural process was curbed by the fact that the while Omar al-Bashir was overthrown his regime remained in power and this basically amended the army and the rapid support forces all of these together took over the regime so while Omar al-Bashir was gone his regime remained in power and these forces work together with some centrists in right-wing political parties which also compromised the army and they basically ran the regime since then which meant that the protesters on the streets kept demanding something else and the army and the right-wing political parties had a completely different agenda okay so from 2021 onwards to now until the war broke out what the international community for instance has done is basically to encourage and promote this agenda of the militia and the right-wing parties which is of very let's say partial reform okay or you know very half-hearted reform in Sudan it would have meant a democracy where the army was still in control of the economy it would have the forms of democracy would have been there but the power would still have been with the vestiges of the old regime the remnants of the old regime right and this is what everyone was happy with international community was happy with the UN the US all of them kept pushing this agenda because they didn't want any radical transformation since that's right Sudan has a very important geopolitical role as far as many of these foreign powers are concerned as well yeah it's in a very important region what is called the horn of Africa so basically since this agenda was never allowed to the agenda of the people was never really allowed to sort of come into practice what remained was this half-hearted partial reform thing which is bound to collapse because armies and military regimes don't like to share power with civilians absolutely the law everywhere right wherever the military is a strong force in the government it is inevitable that within a short time if some progress is made towards democracy it is reversed by a coup or you know new army leader comes to power they take it back right and that's exactly what has happened in Sudan right while they were close to reaching an agreement with the civilian parties the army military general disagreed among themselves and thus this fighting broke out so I think what we're seeing is the result of this is not say the issue of just two individuals which is the leaders of the army and the rapid support forces it is not the result of two or three months of differences between them which is how the reporting often takes place that's right these two generals had a fallout and so you know we're seeing that this is a result of the two years of failure or failure to allow that demands the people to actually be implemented so every time the people pushed their agenda there was repression there was violence and you know that was ignored and it was considered as you know they were at the most the response was certain statement saying that this is not good etc etc okay so I think all this together is really what brought Sudan to where it is right now like I said a very unfortunate situation there are many dimensions issue like the juba peace accords which have which were with various other rebel groups all of which failed but I think this is the fundamental the crux of this crisis is basically the people's demands not being accepted and that is what I think the left has and the progressive sections in Sudan have time in again reiterated. Thanks, thanks a lot Prashant for joining us with us and that's all we have for today thanks very much for watching Daily Debrief you will see you again on Monday until then you can find more of our work on our website peoplesdispatch.org our social media accounts on Facebook Twitter Instagram and our YouTube channel have more updates and this show Daily Debrief thanks again for watching