Commentary: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Wagner Group mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin will each try to convince the Russian people that they emerged as the victor. Yet the facts point in a different direction: Putin and Prigozhin both lost.
Members of the Wagner Group military company load their tank onto a truck on a street in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, June 24, 2023, prior to leaving an area at the headquarters of the Southern Military District.
The rebellion ended as quickly as it began. Less than a day after Wagner Group mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led thousands of his men into Russia and made a beeline toward Moscow, he called it off and pulled them back.
The standoff between the two men is over, at least for now. Prigozhin’s forces have pulled out of Rostov-on-Don, the southern city of 1 million people that Wagner captured with no resistance from Russian security forces. In his first comments since striking an arrangement with Moscow, Prigozhin defended his actions as a response to “
” his fighters were subjected to by the Russian military establishment. Putin is back in the Kremlin after Moscow was essentially locked down over the weekend. All is apparently back to normal after a dizzying 24 hours.Public facades, however, can be deceiving. Putin and Prigozhin have come out of the episode physically unscathed, and both will do their best to convince the Russian people that they emerged from the chaos as the victor.
Public appearances are important for Putin. But the optics have been terrible for him since Saturday. He no longer looks like the archetypical strongman who has a commanding hand on the system he leads. Instead, Prigozhin exposed him as a mere mortal who was clueless that something like this could occur under his watch.Yes, the insurrection was aborted, the Wagner Group retreated and Putin managed to de-escalate the situation without much blood being spilt.
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