This entire thing has made Putin look weak as fuck.

He had to cut a deal to stop the coup attempt.

He's also a strongman style dictator. Cutting a deal to end a rebellion that he promised to crush? No, his days are now numbered. This coup attempt failed, but it will not be the last coup attempt.

When the perpetrators of a coup attempt are free to try again, they will. A lesson the US didn't learn either.

anything is possible with the level of crazy going on there.

To what end? This was embarrassing for everyone involved.

@endlessvoid And what is the goal? Now the results after the performance looks like;

• Putin and the actual regime are weak: armed contractors leave their positions, enter in national territory and occupied a bit town without that the army is able to stop them. At the end and for the first time Putin's regime negotiates publicly with an oppositional illegal armed force inside its territory. Result: the regime show weakness.
• Wagner as a contractor leaves the places in the line of combat and revolts against their actual employer: Result: Wagner cannot be trusted by future employers.
• Since Prigozhin is not more in Russia/Ukraine, and it has been exiled, the command chain and control on Wagner is not more stable. At the same time the Russian Army doesn't seem able to take control of it, at least outside of Russia/Ukraine. Which control does now Russia have about the contracts in Syria, Africa, etc?

To be a theater... it doesn't seem to have a goal. Everyone seems here to be a loser: Wagner not more a successful company, Putin not more the head of a strong regime, the Russian army not more able to defend their territory against a armed force (worse, against a private company, not even a country or a terror organization).

For me more than a theater it looks like symptoms of decadence.

@LollerCorleone @entropicshart