JRL NEWSWATCH: “Wagner’s Aborted Mutiny Leaves No Winners in Russia; The authority of the Russian state has sustained lasting damage, inviting future challenges” – WSJ
“Shaken by the Wagner mutiny, Russia began addressing the damage of Saturday’s bout of violence as its citizens tried to understand how these events will affect … Putin’s regime, … shown … [to be] so unexpectedly vulnerable. … One widely shared conclusion in Russia … was that none of the key players in the power struggle that began when Prigozhin seized … Rostov … has been strengthened by the ordeal that brought the country to the edge of civil war. Putin, who earlier … demanded … security forces crush what he described as a treasonous mutiny, ordered amnesties for Prigozhin and his men by the evening, after … Lukashenko negotiated a face-saving compromise. Prigozhin, who showed Wagner’s strength by marching two-thirds of the way toward Moscow with little opposition, ended up aborting the rebellion and accepting, at least for now, exile in Belarus. The Russian army and security forces, meanwhile, displayed little glory as their troops proved reluctant, if not outright afraid, to try stopping Wagner. …”
Former Soviet prison inmate Yevgeny Prigozhin has a volatile personality, and his Wagner Group mercenary troops include thousands of violent criminals recruited out of Russian prisons.
Nevertheless there was little spontaneous rallying for Putin in the face of the mutiny.
Fighters loyal to Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov did not deploy to form roadblocks on the outskirts of Moscow until after Wagner turned around its columns.
As of early Sunday morning, Wagner reportedly still held a military airfield in southern Russia, and is was not clear when and how Prigozhin would leave for Belarus, or how many of his troops will join him there.