The unity and stability that Putin and his state media have been attempting to portray for years are called into question by Prigozhin’s uprising
Some members of the political elites panicked. Flight radar services pinged dozens of private jets leaving Moscow.
But it wasn’t a systemic crisis.
Regional governors were quick and unanimous in pledging public allegiance to Moscow.
These scenes were very different from 1991 – another attempted military coup. Back then, some of the regional leaders quickly aligned with the rebels. We saw nothing even close to that yesterday.
At the same time, Putin’s image was clearly ruptured.