It was a dramatic 24 hours in Russia, when the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, mutinied, turning his forces back toward Russia in what he described as a ‘march for justice’. The organisation has been one of the most effective parts of Vladimir Putin’s fighting machine in Ukraine, but a feud between Prigozhin and senior Russian generals had been simmering for months over the Kremlin’s leadership of the invasion and occupation of Ukraine. It was an airstrike by the Russian army that apparently provoked Prigozhin to launch a bold and audacious march on Moscow, which almost sparked a civil war, forcing Putin to fortify the capital and declare an emergency. After sweeping through much of Russia on the way to the capital, he eventually called it off when a deal was brokered by the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko. The rebellion marks the most direct threat to Putin’s grip on power since he first became president 23 years ago.
The Guardian’s Russian affairs reporter, Pjotr Sauer, explains what Prigozhin’s rebellion means for Russia and its embattled president
