Days after Russia extricated itself from its biggest domestic political crisis in decades, President Vladimir Putin and the Wagner mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, continue to deal with the reverberations. Amid the uncertainties, this much is clear: the saga has produced no winners, only losers. Belarus’s president Aleksandr Lukashenko put it well, even as he drew attention to his role as peacemaker: “I asked people not to make a hero out of me, neither out of me, nor out of Putin, nor out of Prigozhin.”
For Putin, the consequences of the turmoil are obvious. The Wagner group’s unimpeded march to within 200km (127 miles) of Moscow took Russia’s military and intelligence services by surprise and exposed the Russian system writ large as utterly inept – a far cry from the image of competence and strength that Putin has cultivated assiduously since rising to the presidency in 1999. Wagner’s capture of Rostov – a city of a million and the headquarters of the southern military district – and its northward march toward the capital along the M4 highway left Russia’s strongman looking like a hapless bystander. That, at minimum, tarnished his image – an essential ingredient of his overweening power.
