Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare in-person appearance at a meeting of his Security Council for the first time since he invaded Ukraine in February. Well, aside, from a brief clip of the meeting that aired on state television showing Mr. Putin with key members of his inner circle, the rest of the discussion took place behind closed doors Well, this comes as Ukraine has seen has been rather under a barrage of missile strikes, many of them targeting its energy infrastructure CNN contributor and former CNN Moscow bureau chief Jill Dougherty joins me now from Washington, D.C. She's also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. So good to see you, Jill. Several Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv, have come under attack from Russian missiles, again, hitting critical energy infrastructure. Ukrainian President Zelensky is now warning that up to 10 million people are in the dark with no power. Now, the prime minister is warning that the capital could face a complete shutdown of its power grid, Just as temperatures are expected to drop o -10 degrees Celsius. What's your read on Mr. Putin's plan
to hit now critical civilian infrastructure
in this phase of the war? You know this is part of his plan. Both to decimate the possibility that Ukraine Ukraine can respond very strongly. After all, this is affecting any type of power and that affects civilians as well as the military, but especially civilians. And then I think also what he's doing is sending a message to the West that the price that you're going to pay for supporting Ukraine is going to be very, very high. So it's a dastardly approach to, you know, attacking civilians. But that is the war that he is waging right now. So is very difficult because even though they try and I saw some reports that they have been very quickly trying to restore power in many cases is going to be a very brutal and difficult winter for Ukrainians in a striking development. Russian state television aired images of Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting of his Security Council,
the first For a long time since February when this all began,
especially coming after the setback in Harrison. What message do you think this is meant to send Well, you know, when he was last week personally at a meeting with the Security Council, it was precisely, as you said, at the beginning of the war. And then after that, he would participate. They did participate virtually. And, of course, there was a lot of concern and a lot of protection for President Putin in terms of cold. They've been very, very worried about exposing him to anything. Remember those pictures of him at the very long table? Well, I think physically being there is probably a sign to show that he's on the case. He is, you know, talking with the with his Security Council that he has controlling things. I think it's a symbol of what they're trying to get across some type of stability and strength on the part of the president. I know it's very difficult to gauge, but do we have any way of knowing whether there is dissent within his inner circle, especially seeing what has happened in this past week? Yeah, that is always hard to gauge. I mean, we do know that there there are some second thoughts. There are some second thoughts about this among some members of the elite. But when you get into Putin's inner circle, it's very hard to say precisely what is going on. And that that is one of the problems is his inner circle is very small, or at least we are led to believe that that the people he is surrounded by our people from security forces to the military. And, you know, police, FSB, etc. So to a lot of those people you know, are many times on the side of Putin in terms of really taking the war to the Ukrainians
and sometimes even harsher than Mr. Putin himself. But it's very hard to gauge that. We do know, however, that we have some people in the business community who have spoken out. And certainly, there is some protest diminishing in protest among the people themselves. And in conclusion, Jill, what does the state of play on the battlefield do for the influence of oligarchs like Yevgeny Ghosn, whose Wagner Group mercenary is now literally on the front lines? Well, I mean, with Prigozhin and the Wagner group, I think it gives him, you know, business. His people are being hired to fight. But also, it gives him some political clout. He already had it. But now in the war, he's a very important element of the way that the Russians are fighting this war. So I think his influence certainly has increased. That would be one thing. And, you know, whether or not
that is what's driving things, perhaps it is. But I think a lot of this is simply driven by Putin himself, who shows no sign of going back. You know, there's a debate in the United States
right now in the Biden administration as to whether or not, you know, they would urge Ukraine to come to the negotiating table. And I think, you know, the division
there is that some people feel the Ukrainians have been doing very well. And maybe now's the time to lock in some of those gains that others look, as we've just been discussing this prospect, the very long war, and say, well, you know, the Ukrainians ought to just continue. But we cannot tell them what to do. That's the mantra from this administration. And the phrase, you know, again, is nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. And they continue to say they need it. Jill Dougherty, thank you so much.
