Russian defense minister makes first public appearance since mercenary uprising

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made his first public appearance Monday since a mercenary uprising demanded his ouster, inspecting troops in Ukraine in a video aimed at projecting a sense of order after a weekend of chaos.

Shoigu is one of three powerful Russian military leaders whose diverging interests sparked a mutiny that saw armed rebels seize a Russian city and march seemingly unopposed on Moscow. Thousands of Wagner mercenaries headed from Ukraine deep into Russia before turning around Saturday after less than 24 hours.

Shoigu is the first of the military leaders to appear publicly since then, in a video released by the Defense Ministry that was widely shown on Russian media, including state-controlled television. It was unclear when it was filmed.

Neither Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary group, nor Russian General Staff chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov — like Shoigu, a target of Prigozhin’s ire — has been seen or heard in public since then. Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t made any public appearances either.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin announced an end to the “counterterrorism regime” imposed on the Russian capital Saturday, during which troops and armored vehicles set up checkpoints on the edges of the city and authorities tore up roads leading into the city.

The Defense Ministry released a video showing Shoigu flying in a helicopter and then attending a meeting with military officers at a military headquarters in Ukraine. It showed the defense minister for the first time since Prigozhin declared a “march of justice” to oust him and Gerasimov late Friday, during which Wagner mercenaries captured the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and then marched on Moscow.

The rebellion ended Saturday when Prigozhin ordered his troops back. The Kremlin said it had made a deal that would see Prigozhin move to neighboring Belarus and receive an amnesty, along with his soldiers. The mutiny marked the biggest challenge to Putin in more than 20 years of rule.

As Wagner’s convoy drove out of Rostov-on-Don after its brief occupation Saturday, led by Prigozhin in an SUV, someone asked how he viewed the result of his revolt, according to a video posted later on Russian social media.

“It’s normal — we have cheered everyone up,” Prigozhin said.

It remains unclear what will ultimately happen to Prigozhin and his forces. Few details of the deal were released either by the Kremlin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who claimed to have brokered it, and Prigozhin’s whereabouts were unclear Monday.

Before starting the revolt, Prigozhin had blasted Shoigu and army chief Gerasimov with expletive-ridden insults for months, attacking them for failing to provide his troops with enough ammunition during the battle for Bakhmut, the war’s longest and bloodiest battle.

Putin stood back from the rift, and Shoigu and Gerasimov remained mum, possibly reflecting uncertainty about Putin’s support. Observers said that by failing to end the feud, Putin had encouraged Prigozhin to dramatically up the stakes.

Alex Younger, former head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, said it appeared that “neither side was in control” during the rebellion.

He told the BBC that Prigozhin “didn’t have a plan — he didn’t have enough people” to succeed, while Putin looked indecisive, first vowing to crush the rebels but then striking a deal.

“Everyone comes out of this weaker,” Younger said.

Asked by reporters Saturday whether Putin still trusts Shoigu, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded he wasn’t aware of any changes in the president’s attitude. Commenting on whether any changes in military leadership were discussed during negotiations with Prigozhin, Peskov responded that personnel changes were the exclusive prerogative of Putin as the commander in chief and so it wasn’t a subject for discussion.

Russian media and commentators speculated that Putin could replace Shoigu with Alexei Dyumin, the governor of the Tula region, who had previously served as a Putin bodyguard and then deputy defense minister. They noted that Putin, who avoids making decisions under pressure, would likely wait before announcing a shakeup.

Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya said Prigozhin’s mutiny “wasn’t a bid for power or an attempt to overtake the Kremlin,” but a desperate move amid his escalating rift with Russia’s military leadership.

“Prigozhin was forced out of Ukraine and found himself unable to sustain Wagner the way he did before, while the state machinery was turning against him,” she wrote in a commentary on Twitter. “To top it off, Putin was ignoring him and publicly supporting his most dangerous adversaries.”

Stanovaya said that while Prigozhin could get out of crisis alive, he doesn’t have a political future in Russia under Putin.

The U.S. had intelligence that Prigozhin had been building up his forces near the border with Russia for some time, suggesting the revolt was planned in advance. 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, which he said killed a large number of his men. The Defense Ministry denied attacking the camps.

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 mercenaries, 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.

The British Ministry of Defense said Ukraine had “gained impetus” in its push around Bakhmut, making progress north and south of the town.

“There has been little evidence that Russia maintains any significant ground forces operational level reserves which could be used to reinforce against the multiple threats it is now facing in widely separated sectors,” it said in a daily assessment of the war.

President Biden and leaders of several of Ukraine’s European allies discussed events in Russia over the weekend, but Western officials have been muted in their public comments.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that “the events over the weekend are an internal Russian matter.”