LogFAQs > #975632012

rjsilverthorn posted...

That is the most confusing part of this, I don't understand why he backed out.

It seems likely that he was expecting at least some of the Russian military to rally to his side; when none of them did, he didn't have the strength to force the issue and had to back down.

I found the whole putsch interesting - in particular, the Russian military's actions during it. They didn't join Prigozhin, but neither did they really make any attempt to stop him. The logistics centre at Rostov-on-Don was handed over without a fight, and none of the Russian military units in the area attacked or even attempted to intercept or harass Wagner, aside from one brief skirmish where the Wagnerites shot down a helicopter. Wagner's forces were allowed to approach Moscow unmolested, which suggests to me that there is little loyalty to Putin within their ranks; however, as mentioned, none of those military units pledged themselves to Prigozhin, meaning they didn't seem to trust him either. The military powers seemed content to just sit back and let the two of them fight it out until they could see who was the stronger.

That led to the awkward situation where Prigozhin couldn't complete his coup because he didn't have sufficient support, but Putin couldn't really punish him because he *also* didn't have sufficient support. So both of them had to do this awkward step-down while trying to save as much face as they could, then pretend the whole thing never happened.