Prigozhin’s rebellion: where does it leave Russia, Putin and his war?

And why did mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin start the deadly rebellion - only to give up after 24 hours?

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Members of the Wagner group took over the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday, before starting out for Moscow. Photograph: Vasily Deryugin, Kommersant Publishing House/AP
Members of the Wagner group took over the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday, before starting out for Moscow. Photograph: Vasily Deryugin, Kommersant Publishing House/AP

Yevgeny Prigozhin, mercurial head of the Wagner military group, led an armed rebellion in Russia on Saturday, with his forces coming within 200km of Moscow.

And then, almost as soon as the mutiny began, it ended, with reports that Prigozhin, a vocal critic of the way Russia’s generals are leading the war in Ukraine, had struck a deal that would see him exiled to Belarus.

For hours it looked as though this was a real threat to Putin’s authority: a credible challenge that also revealed the military weakness of the Russian army.

But why did Prigozhin turn his tanks towards Moscow, only to back down so quickly? And what will happen now to Wagner, a vicious fighting group made up largely of former convicts?

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Dan McLaughlin is in Kyiv where he has been reporting on the war. He explains the background to Prigozhin’s audacious action, what we now know about why it ended so abruptly and where the bizarre events leave Putin’s authority and credibility.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon.

Bernice Harrison

Bernice Harrison

Bernice Harrison is an Irish Times journalist and cohost of In the News podcast