Nearly one week after Yevgeny Prigozhin launched his failed mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin, questions have only multiplied and uncertainty has grown.

Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, essentially a mercenary force that operates with the tacit support of the Russian government, marched with his soldiers to within 200 kilometers of Moscow before accepting an offer to go into exile in Belarus. It isn’t clear why he initiated the mutiny nor why he called it off.

Putin has survived the worst crisis of his 23 years in power — but he is weakened. He no longer knows who he can trust and when raw power is the ultimate arbiter of disputes, his is a dangerous position to be in.

Prigozhin was known as “Putin’s chef” because his restaurants were liked by the president and his catering company provided food for the Kremlin. He used that relationship to build a business empire that included the Wagner Group and the Internet Research Agency, a “troll farm” that pumped out torrents of misinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Donald Trump win that ballot.

The common thread linking his companies is that they provide unsavory services that advance Russian state interests while allowing Moscow to deny responsibility for those actions. Investigations have concluded, however, that those activities are tightly integrated with the Defense Ministry of Russia and its intelligence services.

The Wagner Group has a fearsome reputation. It recruited criminals from prison, promised pardons for joining the group and perpetrated horrific brutalities. A United Nation's human rights group implicated its soldiers in “persistent and alarming accounts of horrific executions, mass graves, acts of torture, rape and sexual violence, pillaging, arbitrary detentions and forced disappearances.” It has been responsible for atrocities in Syria and throughout Africa where anti-Western governments have asked the group for security assistance that includes active interventions in local conflicts, usually in exchange for access to natural resources.

The Wagner Group has been central to whatever success Russia has had during the invasion of Ukraine. The Russian Army has performed poorly on the battlefield, and those failures prompted Prigozhin to send his troops into the fight. Wagner forces take — and in some cases are given — credit for whatever gains Russia has made, but costs have been high. While highly motivated — soldiers that surrender have been killed by their own comrades — they are poorly trained, with losses estimated to be as high 20,000 men.

Prigozhin seemed to fight with the Russian defense establishment as hard as he did against the Ukrainians. He complained that Russian Army training and tactics were ineffective and charged the Defense Ministry with being inept and corrupt. He said that his troops had also not been given enough weapons and ammunition.

Despite his loyalty to and relationship with Putin, the old guard appears to be winning this internal struggle. Prigozhin lost the ability to recruit convicts and the media has been told not to mention him. In May, the Defense Ministry demanded that Wagner Group members sign service contracts with the Russian military by July 1, a move that Prigozhin rightly saw as a move to break him.

Last week, he crossed the line. After accusing officials and parliamentarians of cowardice and corruption, he then said the military had attacked Wagner forces. Worse, he charged that the invasion of Ukraine was based on lies and was a deception of the Russian people and Putin.

Prigozhin’s forces seized control of military facilities in Rostov-on-Don, threatened to march to Moscow to bring to account those responsible for “enormous mistakes” in the war in Ukraine and to prevent the “destruction” of the Wagner Group. They halted that drive just 200 km outside the capital, and in a deal said to be brokered by Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, Prigozhin was offered refuge in his country with all charges dropped; his soldiers could then either join him, join the Russian military or go home.

It isn’t clear why Putin or Prigozhin made the deal. The Russian leader has never tolerated insubordination and the ability of the Wagner Group to get that close to Moscow without serious challenge shows that Putin and the state he heads are weak. Given the mercenary leader's force’s rapid advance (780 km in one day), Prigozhin’s readiness to stand down was also a mystery. There is speculation that he expected more support from within the Russian military and did not get it.

That failure will not reassure Putin. He no longer knows who he can trust or whether the people he has backed are the strongest in the rivalry that he has encouraged. A man who has built a political career on projecting power and certainty seems to have neither. The world must now wait to see what he will do to shore up his image and reassert himself.

The Wagner Group was not the only private militia in Russia and it is not clear how the oligarchs who control them will respond to this crisis. Few believe that Putin will be forced from office, but that should not prevent other governments from studying alternatives and preparing for a range of futures.

Repression in Russia will intensify to remind the public that Putin is in charge and to deter any other groups from testing him. The Russian leader has already begun to identify and isolate possible dissent within his inner circle, with special emphasis on the security services. Some suspects have disappeared from public view while other major figures have declared their loyalty to Putin.

A renewed offensive against Ukraine is to be expected to dispel any thoughts that he is distracted or weakened by this incident. Unfortunately for Putin, not only were the Wagner Group forces the most formidable element of the military, but many of the best performing generals appeared to sympathize with Prigozhin or share his views. Putin may make a bold stroke to show he is in charge and that he is still a force to be reckoned with. This is not the time for the West to back down in its support for Ukraine.

The relocation of the Wagner Group to Belarus has worried some NATO countries, especially those in the Baltics, that fear this poses a new risk to them. Polish President Andrzej Duda called the Wagner Group’s presence in Belarus “really serious and very concerning” and requires a “very tough answer of NATO.” Northeast Asian countries too should be prepared for some muscle-flexing.

Putin should use this moment to look for off-ramps in Ukraine. African leaders asked him to end the conflict and China must be nervous about the prospect of instability in its closest geopolitical partner. The war will only continue to intensify internal conflicts within Russia, reducing Putin’s room to maneuver.

Unfortunately, the Russian strongman is more likely to double down. Although Putin has a reputation for strategic thinking, his actions have done nothing to advance Russia's national interests. A hard line is a sign of inflexibility and weakness, but this is almost a reflexive reaction for him. The world must be ready.

The Japan Times Editorial Board