Commentary
There’s no doubt that the brief, but significant armed mutiny by Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin damaged Vladimir Putin. Indeed the Moscow Times described Putin as being “seen as weakened.” Russia Today asked the question, “Was it a one-off or an ominous sign?” And the Russia Post headline identified “The Prigozhin Mutiny as a Moment of Truth for the Putin Regime.”
These three stories are just a small sample of the stories in Russian media highlighting the significance of the Prigozhin revolt and how poorly it reflects on Putin. Of course, as is the case in the West, what’s being proclaimed by Russia’s major media may not be reflective of what the average Russian citizen believes, but at a minimum, the mutiny punctured Putin’s air of invincibility. More generally, it highlighted the dangerous downside of employing semi-private, semi-autonomous military operations like the Wagner group to execute major military operations….