Some key takeaways :
The Kremlin struggled to cohere an effective rapid response to Wagner’s advances, highlighting internal security weaknesses likely due to surprise and the impact of heavy losses in Ukraine.
Putin unsurprisingly elected to back the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and its ongoing efforts to centralize control of Russian irregular forces (including Wagner) over Prigozhin.
The Lukashenko-brokered agreement will very likely eliminate Wagner Group as a Prigozhin-led independent actor in its current form, although elements of the organization may endure under existing and new capacities.
Prigozhin likely gambled that his only avenue to retain Wagner Group as an independent force was to march against the Russian MoD, likely intending to secure defections in the Russian military but overestimating his own prospects.
The optics of Belarusian President Lukashenko playing a direct role in halting a military advance on Moscow are humiliating to Putin and may have secured Lukashenko other benefits.
The Kremlin now faces a deeply unstable equilibrium. The Lukashenko-negotiated deal is a short-term fix, not a long-term solution, and Prigozhin’s rebellion exposed severe weaknesses in the Kremlin and Russian MoD.
Why is everyone concluding that this weakens Putin?
If anything could overthrow him, a Wagner coup tops the list, but it ended as quickly as it began. Now there’s fewer looming threats and he proved he can squash such a serious one with ease. Didn’t he become more secure?
The only harm I can see is that Wagner is no longer in Ukraine.
It makes Putin look weak since he can’t even control his own military forces and had to be saved by a foreign leader.
It makes the Russian military look weak since they had no answer to a coup attempt against their own headquarters and against their capital, even with forewarning.
A private military of 25,000 was permitted to occupy the southern military district headquarters, down military helicopters, and march through the streets most of the way to the capitol.
They did so with zero apparent or meaningful resistance.
It’s not about nebulous power moves that raise or lower Putin’s perceived strength. It’s about the very real and very poor state of Russia’s available internal security forces.