Russia shows Putin ally with army after revolt

BLOOMBERG

President Vladimir Putin’s defense minister visited combat troops in Ukraine, in an apparent Kremlin effort to bolster his position after a mercenary leader’s mutiny demanding the removal of top military chiefs.
Sergei Shoigu was shown on state television meeting with officers at what the Defense Ministry said was the forward command post of Russia’s ‘Zapad’ group of forces in the war zone in Ukraine. He was briefed “on the current situation, the nature of the enemy’s actions and the performance of combat missions by Russian troops,” the ministry said.
The emergence of Putin’s close ally came after troops loyal to Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin rebelled and came within 200 kilometres (124 miles) of Moscow in support of his calls to oust Shoigu and other top defense officials. Prigozhin has heaped abuse on Shoigu for months, accusing him of bungling the invasion of Ukraine and of attempting to “destroy” his Wagner group.
Putin hasn’t been seen when he denounced the revolt as “treason” in a TV address to the nation and threatened “harsh” punishment that never transpired. Instead, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal for Prigozhin to end the revolt in return for Putin allowing him to travel to Belarus and dropping criminal mutiny charges against the Wagner leader and his fighters.
Prigozhin’s whereabouts are unknown and he’s been silent since announcing that he was calling off the assault and withdrawing his forces in an audio message on Telegram. Video on social media showed crowds cheering him and shaking his hand as he was driven away from a military installation in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don that Wagner had taken over early in the mutiny.
Despite the deal with the Kremlin, Russian news services reported that prosecutors were continuing to investigate Prigozhin and haven’t closed the criminal case against him. The rapid chain of events has left the US, Europe and China puzzling over the political fallout from a rebellion that shattered Putin’s invincible image as Russia’s leader and spiraled into the greatest threat to his nearly quarter-century rule.
The crisis highlighted bitter divisions within Russia over the faltering war in Ukraine that’s the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II, as a Ukrainian counteroffensive continues to try to push Putin’s forces out of occupied territories.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wagner’s revolt was a “direct challenge” to Putin’s authority and “raises profound questions,” in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation.