In a bewildering 24 hours, a transfixed international audience watched troops loyal to Russian mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin advance hundreds of miles toward Moscow at breakneck speed only for him to suddenly call off the assault and agree to go into exile with all charges dropped in a late-night deal.
An eerie calm fell on Russia after the dramatic end to an armed uprising that posed the greatest threat to Vladimir Putin’s almost quarter-century rule.
The man who led the insurrection has gone uncharacteristically quiet. The president hasn’t been seen in public since denouncing the mutiny as “treason” and threatening “harsh” punishment that never transpired.
