Did it really make him look weak, though? He’s consolidated the military under the MoD umbrella, his comradery with Lukashenko likely improved, the West is admitting that Ukraine is running out of ammo (thus the cluster ammunition) and he (or rather Lukashenko) has a strong private army close to the Ukrainian border, about 90km from Kiev.

The only people claiming his weakness were some Western officials and the press and both haven’t been particularly trustworthy nor well informed in their assessments of the situation thus far.

Edit: Not to forget that Prigozhin made it clear that his problems weren’t with Putin but with MoD leadership/Shoigu.

The idea that Putin looked weak is something only being promulgated on Western media, I have Russian and Belorussian friends and follow Russian Telegram channels and everywhere the idea of Putin, you like it or not, is that it emerged stronger, since pretty much all high ranking officers in the military stood by him and showed unity, and he managed to resolve the situation with as little bloodshed as possible. From the outside, everyone can cry whatever they want about him looking weak, but what matters is that inside of Russia there’s more unity now than before, and that makes them look at themselves as stronger.

I suspect he may be grooming Pregozin to take over the presidency. Maybe Putin’s health is failing. If Putin really orchestrated all this, it’s one of the only scenarios that explains it well.

What if it’s a way they think they can get away with nukes, without article 5? Nukes in Belarus…oh sowee Wagner got a hold of tactical nukes from Belarus those scoundrels and used them welp nothing we can do. But they rebelled so not Russia obviously!