Russian President Vladimir Putin managed to avert an attack on Moscow by means of an eleventh-hour deal with his mutinous mercenary commander. But the uprising has pierced his aura of total political control over Russia unlike any other event in his nearly quarter century in power.
Insiders in Moscow were stunned that he’d ignored repeated warnings that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was preparing to bring convoys of heavily armed fighters to the capital. Instead, the Russian leader allowed them to get so close authorities had to deploy tanks and troops in defense. That’s fueled once-unthinkable doubts about his legendary command of the country.
U.S. and European officials privately described the 24-hour uprising — advance indications of which their intelligence also picked up — as an unprecedented challenge to the 70-year-old president’s control. The murky deal that allowed Prigozhin and his men to leave without consequences is unlikely to mark the end of the tensions, they warned.