反叛的雇佣兵在向莫斯科的不祥进军中短暂接管了俄罗斯军事总部，他们于周日离开，但短暂的反叛削弱了弗拉基米尔·普京总统的力量，因为他的部队正在面临一场激烈的反攻乌克兰.
根据结束危机的协议条款，叶夫根尼·普里戈津(Yevgeny Prigozhin)将被流放到白俄罗斯，但不会面临起诉。普里戈津在起义中领导他的瓦格纳部队，但失败了。
但是还不清楚他和他的部队最终会怎么样。由白俄罗斯总统亚历山大·卢卡申科促成的这笔交易的细节很少被披露，普里戈津和普京都没有消息。俄罗斯军方高层领导人也保持沉默。
美国国务卿安东尼·布林肯形容周末的事件是“非同寻常的”，他回忆说，16个月前，普京似乎准备夺取乌克兰首都，现在他不得不从他曾经的门徒领导的部队手中保卫莫斯科。
“我认为我们已经看到俄罗斯正面出现了更多的裂缝，”布林肯在全国广播公司的“与媒体见面”节目中说
“现在判断他们去哪里以及何时到达还为时过早，但毫无疑问，我们有各种各样的新问题，普京必须在未来几周和几个月内解决这些问题。”
目前还不清楚24小时叛乱打开的裂缝对乌克兰战争意味着什么。但这导致了一些为俄罗斯而战的最优秀的部队被撤出了战场:瓦格纳的部队，他们在巴赫穆特取得了数月来克里姆林宫唯一的一次陆地胜利，并展示了他们的效力;车臣士兵被派去阻止他们逼近莫斯科。
瓦格纳部队基本上没有遭遇抵抗，快速推进也暴露了俄罗斯安全和军事力量的弱点。据报道，雇佣军击落了几架直升机和一架军用通讯飞机。国防部尚未置评。
CAN research group的俄罗斯研究主任迈克尔·考夫曼(Michael Kofman)在一篇播客中表示，“老实说，我认为瓦格纳在过去一天对俄罗斯航空航天部队造成的损害，可能比乌克兰的进攻在过去三周造成的损害还要大。”。
乌克兰人希望俄罗斯的内讧能为他们的军队创造机会，他们的军队正处于夺回被俄罗斯军队占领的领土的反攻的早期阶段。
英国武装部队前总参谋长理查德·丹纳特勋爵(Lord Richard Dannatt)表示:“普京和俄罗斯军队的影响力大大减弱，这对乌克兰来说意义重大。”。"...Prigozhin已经离开舞台去了白俄罗斯，但这是叶夫根尼·Prigozhin和瓦格纳集团的终结吗?”
根据阻止Prigozhin前进的协议条款，不支持叛乱的瓦格纳军队将直接与俄罗斯军方签订合同，将他们置于Prigozhin试图驱逐的军方高层的控制之下。Prigozhin叛乱的一个可能动机是国防部要求私营公司在7月1日之前与其签署合同，这一要求得到了普京的支持。Prigozhin拒绝这样做。
“我们不知道，但将在未来几小时和几天内发现的是，他有多少战士和他一起去了，因为如果他去了白俄罗斯，并在他周围保持有效的战斗力量，那么他...对乌克兰再次构成威胁。
乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽伦斯基(Volodymyr Zelenskyy)表示，他周日在电话中告诉美国总统乔·拜登(Joe Biden)，俄罗斯流产的叛乱“暴露了普京政权的弱点”
在他们闪电般的推进中，Prigozhin的部队在周六控制了俄罗斯南部的两个军事中心，并在撤退前到达莫斯科200公里(120英里)以内。
周六晚些时候，瓦格纳的军队离开时，顿河畔罗斯托夫的人们向他们欢呼，这一幕正好迎合了普京对民众起义的担忧。当Prigozhin驾驶一辆SUV离开时，一些人跑过去和他握手。
然而，叛乱很快失败了，部分原因是Prigozhin没有得到他显然期望从俄罗斯安全部门得到的支持。联邦安全局立即要求逮捕他。
“显然，Prigozhin失去了勇气，”前中央情报局局长、退休的美国将军David Petraeus在CNN的“国情咨文”中说。
“这种反叛虽然一路赢得了一些掌声，但似乎并没有获得他所希望的那种支持。”
周日早上，罗斯托夫看起来很平静，路上只有坦克的痕迹，让人想起瓦格纳的战斗机。
“感谢上帝，一切都完美地结束了。我想是以最小的伤亡。干得好，”一名居民说，他只愿意透露自己的名字谢尔盖。他说瓦格纳的士兵曾经是他的英雄，但现在不是了。
在位于通往莫斯科道路上的利佩茨克地区，居民们似乎没有受到骚乱的影响。
“他们没有破坏任何东西。他们平静地站在人行道上，没有靠近任何人，也没有和任何人说话，”米莲娜·戈尔布诺娃告诉美联社记者。
当瓦格纳的军队向北向莫斯科推进时，配备机枪的俄罗斯军队在郊外设立了检查站。到周日下午，军队已经撤离，交通恢复正常，尽管红场仍然不对游客开放。在通往莫斯科的高速公路上，工作人员正在修复几个小时前在恐慌中被毁坏的道路。
国家控制的电视台主持人将结束危机的协议视为普京智慧的展示，并播放了瓦格纳军队从罗斯托夫撤退以解救当地居民的镜头，当地居民担心为控制这座城市而发生流血冲突。那里接受第一频道采访的人赞扬了普京对危机的处理。
但叛乱和结束叛乱的协议严重损害了普京作为一个愿意无情惩罚任何挑战其权威的人的领导人的声誉。
普里戈津要求国防部长谢尔盖·绍伊古(Sergei Shoigu)下台，普里戈津长期以来一直严厉批评他在乌克兰的战争指挥方式。
美国有情报显示，Prigozhin已经在俄罗斯边境附近集结了一段时间。这与Prigozhin的说法相矛盾，Prigozhin声称，他的叛乱是对俄罗斯军队周五袭击他在乌克兰的野战营地的回应，他说这次袭击导致他的大量士兵死亡。国防部否认袭击了营地。
众议院情报委员会主席、美国众议员迈克·特纳(Mike Turner)表示，向莫斯科进军似乎是提前计划好的。
特纳在哥伦比亚广播公司(CBS)的《面对国家》(Face the Nation)节目中说，“现在，作为一名军人，他知道后勤，也知道他需要什么样的援助，”包括在乌克兰边境支持他的一些俄罗斯人
他说:“这是一件需要计划很长时间才能以这种方式执行的事情。”。
With Russia revolt over, mercenaries' future and direction of Ukraine war remain uncertain
The rebellious mercenary soldiers who briefly took over a Russian military headquarters on an ominous march toward Moscow were gone Sunday, but the short-lived revolt has weakened President Vladimir Putin just as his forces are facing a fierce counteroffensive in Ukraine.
Under terms of the agreement that ended the crisis, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led his Wagner troops in the failed uprising, will go into exile in Belarus but will not face prosecution.
But it was unclear what would ultimately happen to him and his forces. Few details of the deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko have been released, and neither Prigozhin nor Putin has been heard from. Top Russian military leaders have also remained silent.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the weekend’s events as “extraordinary,” recalling that 16 months ago Putin appeared poised to seize the capital of Ukraine and now he has had to defend Moscow from forces led by his onetime protege.
“I think we’ve seen more cracks emerge in the Russian façade,” Blinken said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“It is too soon to tell exactly where they go and when they get there, but certainly we have all sorts of new questions that Putin is going to have to address in the weeks and months ahead.”
It was not yet clear what the fissures opened by the 24-hour rebellion would mean for the war in Ukraine. But it resulted in some of the best forces fighting for Russia being pulled from the battlefield: the Wagner troops, who had shown their effectiveness in scoring the Kremlin's only land victory in months, in Bakhmut, and Chechen soldiers sent to stop them on the approach to Moscow.
The Wagner forces' largely unopposed, rapid advance also exposed vulnerabilities in Russia's security and military forces. The mercenary soldiers were reported to have downed several helicopters and a military communications plane. The Defense Ministry has not commented.
“I honestly think that Wagner probably did more damage to Russian aerospace forces in the past day than the Ukrainian offensive has done in the past three weeks," Michael Kofman, director of Russia Studies at the CAN research group, said in a podcast.
Ukrainians hoped the Russian infighting could create opportunities for their army, which is in the early stages of a counteroffensive to take back territory seized by Russian forces.
“Putin is much diminished and the Russian military, and this is significant as far as Ukraine is concerned," said Lord Richard Dannatt, former chief of the general staff of the British armed forces. “... Prigozhin has left the stage to go to Belarus, but is that the end of Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner Group?”
Under terms of the agreement that stopped Prigozhin’s advance, Wagner troops who didn’t back the revolt will be offered contracts directly with the Russian military, putting them under the control of the military brass that Prigozhin was trying to oust. A possible motivation for Prigozhin’s rebellion was the Defense Ministry’s demand, which Putin backed, that private companies sign contracts with it by July 1. Prigozhin had refused to do it.
“What we don’t know, but will discover in the next hours and days is, how many of his fighters have gone with him, because if he has gone to Belarus and kept an effective fighting force around him, then he ... presents a threat again” to Ukraine, Dannatt said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he told U.S. President Joe Biden in a phone call on Sunday that the aborted rebellion in Russia had “exposed the weakness of Putin's regime.”
In their lightning advance, Prigozhin's forces on Saturday took control of two military hubs in southern Russia and got within 200 kilometers (120 miles) of Moscow before retreating.
People in Rostov-on-Don cheered Wagner troops as they departed late Saturday, a scene that played into Putin’s fear of a popular uprising. Some ran to shake hands with Prigozhin as he drove away in an SUV.
Yet the rebellion fizzled quickly, in part because Prigozhin did not have the backing he apparently expected from Russian security services. The Federal Security Services immediately called for his arrest.
"Clearly, Prigozhin lost his nerve," retired U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, a former CIA director, said on CNN's “State of the Union.”
"This rebellion, although it had some applause along the way, didn’t appear to be generating the kind of support that he had hoped it would.”
Rostov appeared calm Sunday morning, with only tank tracks on the roads as a reminder of the Wagner fighters.
“It all ended perfectly well, thank God. With minimal casualties, I think. Good job,” said one of the residents, who agreed only to provide his first name, Sergei. He said the Wagner soldiers used to be heroes to him, but not now.
In the Lipetsk region, which sits on the road to Moscow, residents appeared unfazed by the turmoil.
“They did not disrupt anything. They stood calmly on the pavement and did not approach or talk to anyone,” Milena Gorbunova told the AP.
As Wagner forces moved north toward Moscow, Russian troops armed with machine guns set up checkpoints on the outskirts. By Sunday afternoon, the troops had withdrawn and traffic had returned to normal, although Red Square remained closed to visitors. On highways leading to Moscow, crews repaired roads ripped up just hours earlier in panic.
Anchors on state-controlled television stations cast the deal ending the crisis as a show of Putin’s wisdom and aired footage of Wagner troops retreating from Rostov to the relief of local residents who feared a bloody battle for control of the city. People there who were interviewed by Channel 1 praised Putin’s handling of the crisis.
But the revolt and the deal that ended it severely dented Putin’s reputation as a leader willing to ruthlessly punish anyone who challenges his authority.
Prigozhin had demanded the ouster of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, whom Prigozhin has long criticized in withering terms for how he has conducted the war in Ukraine.
The U.S. had intelligence that Prigozhin had been building up his forces near the border with Russia for some time. That conflicts with Prigozhin’s claim that his rebellion was a response to an attack on his field camps in Ukraine on Friday by the Russian military that he said killed a large number of his men. The Defense Ministry denied attacking the camps.
U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said the march on Moscow appeared to have been planned in advance.
“Now, being a military guy, he understands the logistics and really the assistance that he’s going to need to do that,” including from some Russians on the border with Ukraine who supported him, Turner said on CBS' “Face the Nation.”
“This is something that would have had to have been planned for a significant amount of time to be executed in the manner in which it was,” he said.
