Vladimir Putin spoke out strongly on national television yesterday, but the BBC’s Russia editor claims that Putin “doesn’t come out of this looking very strong.”
Speaking from Moscow, Steve Rosenberg says Putin began yesterday by saying Russia had been “stabbed in the back” by the Wagner Group’s attempted mutiny.
By the end of the day its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, whom Putin had labelled a traitor, had all the charges against him dropped.
“We don’t know all the details of the agreement that was reached between the Kremlin and Wagner,” he tells the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.
Perhaps more details will emerge in the coming days – but Putin doesn’t look particularly strong after this, Rosenberg reiterates.