How will

the

brief but shocking mutiny by a Russian paramilitary group influencing the war in Ukraine?

In muddy field bunkers and chilly war rooms, lit by flashing electronic screens, that question is being judged by Ukrainian officials and

fields

commanders and the answer may depend largely on the time frame involved.

An emerging consensus seems to hold that the failed

weekend

The uprising, orchestrated by Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the notorious private army known as the Wagner Group, is unlikely to have an immediate impact on the battlefield during the 16-month-old Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This is partly due to Wagner

mercenaries,

to have

supplied

Russians

recent

catch of

the

eastern city of Bakhmut, had already withdrawn from the front line and handed over the task of defensive measures to the regular Russian army.

And the chaotic 24-hour uprising

,

which culminates

Saturday

in an amnesty deal for Prigozhin, Ukrainian troops still face a formidable maze of entrenched strongholds along a crescent-shaped battlefront stretching hundreds of miles across Ukraine’s south and east.

On the immediate front line, many obstacles facing Ukrainian forces, such as landmines, fortifications and the Russian troops defending them, are likely to remain unchanged, Jacob Mezey wrote in an article for the Atlantic Council.

But the long-term prosecution of the war is an entirely different question. The extraordinary spectacle of Wagner mercenaries marching on Moscow before abruptly retreating dealt a severe blow to the power and prestige of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We’ve seen some very serious cracks emerge,” US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on ABC Sunday

television

. “It’s still a moving picture and I doubt we’ve seen the last act.”

Blinken added: “And of course, if you put this in context, 16 months ago Putin stood on the doorstep of Kiev in Ukraine to take the city in days and erase the country from the map. Now he had to defend Moscow, the capital of Russia, against a mercenary of his own making.”

The Biden administration, long

conscious

from Progozhin

‘s

possibility to activate his benefit

and the chaos it could cause

, spent most of the weekend in emergency talks with allies from Europe and NATO. Several senior officials canceled travel and other plans and were raised with President Biden at Camp David as events unfolded in Russia.

It remains unclear what persuaded Prigozhin to do so

order

his troops

to make a U-turn after almost reaching

Moscow. Putin, who has not been seen in public since

a

fiery speech early Saturday, in which he threatened to prosecute Prigozhin and his men as traitors, apparently

blinked first. That has been announced by the Kremlin

no prosecution

would be

launched, Prigozhin

would be

allowed to fly to neighboring Belarus, a puppet state of Moscow, and

many of his

mercenaries will supposedly be merged into Russia’s regular army.

But it is unclear whether the

you would

accepted army leadership, as the top generals were a prime target of Prigozhin’s wrath.

“This could be a game that’s going on that we really don’t understand,” Angela Stent, a Georgetown University professor emerita who specializes in Eastern Europe, said in an online group chat sponsored by the Brookings Institution on Sunday. “Let’s see if

Hi

[Prigozhin] is actually in Belarus. Let’s see what really happens to him.”

She noted that the Wagner group’s exploits around the world, supporting African warlords and seizing millions of dollars from exploitative, deadly gold and diamond mines, made the Wagner group the most effective way for Putin to project world power for many years. “It’s not going away,” she said

predicted.

The Russian army, previously regarded as one of the world’s most powerful, suffered a series of humiliating setbacks in its first year of fighting in Ukraine.

other

Ukraine is now under intense international pressure to make significant military gains during the summer months, a campaign that has yet to be launched in full force.

So far, the Ukrainian armed forces have mainly limited themselves to shaping operations, trying to create the conditions for future confrontations, without making full use of newly trained and Western-equipped brigades.

In the days

before the Prigozhin mutiny, Ukrainian officials had expressed

to assure

with the idea that fighting in the summer would quickly result in huge territorial gains, as the Ukrainian forces achieved last fall.

Some people think this is a Hollywood movie and are now expecting results, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the BBC last week. Whatever some may want, including attempts to pressure us, with all due respect, we will continue on the battlefield in the way we see fit.”

Recent progress has been slow and sometimes costly, but Ukrainian officials this weekend reported more progress in the villages around Bakhmut, which fell last month, and

So

revealed the recapture of territory near the town of Krasnohorivka, in Donetsk province, held by Russia since 2014.

Prigozhin launched his short-lived rebellion by taking control of Russia’s main rear logistics center before the war, the military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don. Late Saturday and Sunday, images of locals circulated on social media

S

cheering and posing for selfies with the paramilitary leader as his troops retreated from the city in a sight that may have been unnerving for Putin and his allies.

“Putin spoke tough in his national speech,” Michael McFaul, a political scientist at Stanford University and former US ambassador to Russia, said on Twitter on Sunday. “He sounded like someone preparing for a big fight. But when faced with the difficult decision of stopping Wagner mercenaries with great force, he retreated. … He was the rat stuck in the corner.. . [b]but he didn’t lash out

other

go crazy He bargained with a traitor.”

Some analysts suggested that Putin will now feel pressured to launch dramatic military strikes in Ukraine, but that his army may not be able to do so

to continue.

In

the

weeks and months prior to his mutiny, Prigozhin launched blistering attacks against the Russian senior military command due to the harrowing field conditions faced by Russian forces. The impact on morale is difficult to quantify, but Ukraine has sought to amplify Russian soldiers’ social media depictions of food and ammunition shortages and commander incompetence.

The failed uprising gave Ukrainian officials another chance to mock the Russian command as well as Prigozhin. Yuri Sak, an adviser to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, called the episode the most ridiculous

attempted mutiny” ever.

Speaking to the BBC, Sak said it would not affect Ukraine’s military goals to liberate our country.

As the Prigozhin-led rebellion flared and then fizzled out, ordinary Ukrainians responded to the disorder next door with an avalanche of online jokes and memes, often involving huge piles of popcorn.

Retiree Valeriy Beliankyn, who took a morning walk near a gold-domed monastery in central Kiev, said he was not worried about Prigozhin’s exile to Belarus, whose border is less than 100 miles from the Ukrainian capital is located.

It would have been better if they had stayed on the road to Moscow, he said of the Wagner forces. But we were not worried that they would take the road to Kiev. Stood strong.

Earlier in the war, Putin was fortunate enough to exploit Wagner’s firepower and willingness to use savage tactics to achieve military objectives. The conquest of Bakhmut under Wagner was Russia’s only territorial success of the year.

Wagner’s continued role in Ukraine is

now

not clear. The Kremlin said fighters who participated in the mutiny would not be prosecuted, while members of the private army who did not participate would be offered contracts with the Defense Ministry.

Analysts have suggested that it was an announcement earlier this month from the Defense Ministry that volunteer formations like Wagner should sign such contracts to bring Prigozhin under tighter control that paved the way for the uprising.

King reports from Kiev and Wilkinson from Washington.