The extraordinary events of the past 48 hours – Prigozhin’s armed mutiny, Putin’s call for “brutal” reprisals, an 11th-hour peace deal – might appear to have resolved themselves. The leader of the Wagner mercenary group has halted his armed mutiny and march on the Russian capital, apparently in exchange for an amnesty and exile in Belarus. He is no longer on course for civil war with Moscow.
And yet, few believe this is the end of the affair. At some point Prigozhin will surely have to pick up the tab for his foray into revolutionary politics. And Putin must make good on the threats that he issued on national television on Saturday or make an embarrassing about-face during the most dangerous days of his 23 years as Russia’s supreme leader.
The real cost of Prigozhin’s uprising is still being assessed, but it has seriously damaged the prestige of Russia’s army, which inexplicably failed to stop the insurrection, and undermined the sense that Russia can remain stable even as it unleashes daily violence on neighbouring Ukraine.
During their campaign, Prigozhin’s armed mutineers shot down at least two helicopters and killed around 15 Russian service personnel, many of them airmen. Mercenaries armed by the Kremlin occupied a Russian city of more than 1 million people for a day. People in the city saw Prigozhin off as a hero, a spontaneous, raucous reception that Putin will doubtless be jealous of.
Russian armed forces dug anti-tank trenches into federal highways, cancelled trains and flights from much of southern Russia, closed museums and parks, and declared Monday a holiday in Moscow as they announced a counterterrorist operation….
Last Thursday Yevgeny Prigozhin let rip on his favourite subject: the incompetence and vanity of Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu. Seated in front of a Wagner flag and sipping from a mug of tea, he called his bitter enemy a scumbag. Shoigu was a craven PR man and oligarch who had never held a weapon in his life, he raged.
The defence ministry had duped Vladimir Putin into last year’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin added. The decision had nothing to do with “denazification” or “demilitarisation”, or an imminent Nato attack on Russia – the official reasons for the war. It was all about Shoigu’s wish for a second “hero of Russia” medal, he claimed….
After the truth-shower 