will not charge him and allows him to go to Belarus

Since he was named interim president on December 31, 1999, Putin had never faced a crisis like the one he is experiencing this weekend and that is that the Russian president has been betrayedas he said in his address to the nation, for one of his most trusted menYevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group. But, furthermore, he has not given the forceful blow that a strong leader is supposed to do when he suffers a rebellion, setting a dangerous precedent that gives wings to his internal opponents -such as the Russian Freedom Legion- and external ones -such as Ossetia -.

Putin was surprised late on Friday when the Wagner Group launched its threats against the Kremlin. The National Guard went on alert and Moscow shielded. The internal deployment of the corps and security forces increased as they received reports that troops under Prigozhin’s orders were advancing and he called the revolt “treason” defining it as a “stab in the back.” The strategy of surprise – that Putin himself used at the start of the invasion of Ukraine – has been the same one that the leader of Wagner has used to launch himself for the military power of Russia.

[“¿El Ejército obedecerá a Putin o a Wagner?”: la clave del motín para un excomandante de EEUU]

And it is that the surprise is greater coming from the man than in 2016, when the Kremlin sought to tilt the elections in favor of Trump, it came to the fore with a ‘troll factory’ on the Internet. As Russia sought to expand its reach in Syria and Africa, Prigozhin deployed his growing force of Wagner mercenaries to those regions.allowing the Kremlin to project power while minimizing Russian military troops on the ground.

Prigozhin’s last service to date was to come to Putin’s rescue when he was most needed in Ukraine. and after the blitzkrieg he planned to “liberate Ukraine” failed. This being the case, and at a time when Ukraine has not finished falling and Russia has not finished winning, Wagner’s mutiny has exploded in his face.

[La UE y la OTAN, en alerta por la rebelión de Wagner: “El régimen del Kremlin cosecha lo que sembró”]

Many in Russia consider Putin a failure and His popularity continues to decline. since what was expected by many as a quick conquest as happened with Crimea in 2014 has not been such and every day soldiers die on the Ukrainian battlefield.

This, added to the “flight forward” of the Russian president, who does not recognize that things have not turned out as expected and spends huge amounts of money to equip Wagner and the Army with weapons, is leading to part of the population having I lost trust in him.

In addition to the shielding of Moscow and the relentless advance of Prigozhin’s men until they themselves decided to stop the offensive, Putin’s relative loneliness has also been demonstrated internationally. After the revolt, called the leaders of Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Iran on Saturday morning, countries with which it already shares common interests. There has been no sign, however, that China or India spoke with the Russian president, supported only by his most direct partners on the global scene.

Prigozhin, hero and villain

It is the case that right now Prigozhin is the ‘people’s man’ in Russia, since opponents of the regime see him as “the savior” of the civilian population Russian. This has been demonstrated this Saturday in Rostov, when the Wagners were cheered upon leaving the city to return to their barracks after having taken control of the municipality in a few hours and without firing a shot, according to their version.

It must be said that Wagner’s leader is not a pacifist and that the position he maintains is to take Ukraine with more force and with greater decision by the military high command. Prigozhin maintains that Russia lacks decision and he has established himself as ‘the leader’ that the country needs and the only one who can achieve it.

The weakness shown by Putin towards Wagner has been underlined by the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, in his evening speech on Saturday: “Today, the world saw that the bosses of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all (…) The man from the Kremlin is obviously very scared and probably hiding somewhere. I am sure that he is no longer in Moscow,” he said, echoing speculation about the whereabouts of the Russian president that spread throughout the day.

What happens is that with the Prigozhin rebellion has increased Ukraine’s probability that its counteroffensive can come to fruition and recover more territory. In fact, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense reported that they had advanced positions on all fronts, given the foreseeable withdrawal and disorganization of the Russian troops in a chaotic day in their own territory. Furthermore, thinking in the medium term, it has already been proven that Wagner is more effective and better organized than the Russian Army, now preoccupied with mining fields in the Ukraine. The great territorial gains in the conflict were made by Wagner’s men, not the Russian military.

Which seems to have saved Putin from total disaster It is the mediation carried out by Lukashenko, President of Belarus, with Prigozhin so that they would drop their attitude and return to their bases in a last move when the group was 300 kilometers from Moscow.

But Yevgueni Prigozhin not only announced that they were giving up their attitude, but he did it with a nod to the population among which his popularity continues to rise: “we will not shed a single drop of blood from our combatants. We are at a point where blood may be spilledTherefore, realizing all the responsibility, we are deploying our columns and leaving in the opposite direction to the camps according to the plan,” the Wagner leader confirmed to end the conflict.

So, with Putin’s popularity on the wane because of the Ukraine war and what has happened now, the Russian leader has little escape. He is at his lowest moment and despite the fact that the Wagner mutiny has been dissolved, the questions will continue for months, increasing political instability and raising the big question: Is Putin capable of maintaining control of the country?