![]() The imagery of Putin appearing on national television to call for the end of an armed rebellion and warning of a repeat of the 1917 revolution - and then requiring mediation from a foreign leader to resolve the rebellion - will have a lasting impact. Suggestions that Prigozhin's rebellion, the Kremlin's response, and Lukashenko's mediation were all staged by the Kremlin are absurd. The optics of Belarusian President Lukashenko playing a direct role in halting a military advance on Moscow are humiliating to Putin and may have secured Lukashenko other benefits. Researchers with the group said the mutiny, though it did not topple the government, embarrassed Putin before friend and foe alike, revealing that he no longer enjoys a monopoly of force within his own country: That assessment was shared by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. ![]() But there is the growing feeling that he is a lame duck, and they have to prepare for Russia after Putin." ![]() He is still President, but all the different clans now have the feeling that 'Russia after Putin' is getting closer. I have the feeling he is not really running the country. Zygar added that, while the crisis was staved off following the intervention of Belarus President Alexsandr Lukashenko, the damage is done: "There came a moment when Prigozhin was no longer Putin's puppet," Zygar said. The student became the master, or at least threatened to. Mikhail Zygar, a Russian journalist and author of the book, "All the Kremlin's Men," told The New Yorker that Prigozhin, a former prisoner whose brand of populist "straight talk" has won him a massive following on social media - and who may have larger political ambitions - effectively exposed Putin as the sort of out-of-touch elite he used to decry. In his public remarks, Prigozhin directed his criticism at Russia's military leaders, accusing them of mismanaging the war in Ukraine and undermining his private military company - the culmination of a months-long feud, coming just days before the Ministry of Defense was set to formally take over control of groups such as Wagner.īut, experts say, Russians will not soon forget the sight of mercenaries seizing military installations, capturing a city home to more than one million people, and marching to within striking distance of the Kremlin, prompting emergency " counter-terrorist" measures and a desperate attempt to thwart Wagner's advance by tearing up the road into Moscow. The mutiny was not, ostensibly, about Putin at all. Yevgeny Prigozhin's rebellion may have abruptly ended before Wagner's forces entered Moscow, but the very fact that a warlord and thousands of his soldiers were able to threaten the capital - and that a foreign leader had to step in to negotiate a peace deal - is a humiliating blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin from which he will never fully recover, experts said in the wake of a remarkable 48 hours. The Wagner boss showed that the Russian president no longer enjoys a monopoly of force in his country.Īmong Moscow's elites, "there is the growing feeling that he is a lame duck," a Russian journalist said. Yevgeny Prigozhin's rebellion is over but the damage to Vladimir Putin is irreversible, experts say. Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/Xinhua via Getty Images People walk past a screen broadcasting Russian President Vladimir Putin's televised address to the nation, in Moscow, Russia, June 24, 2023.
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