Aftermath: The Czar has no clothes

"All that remains is the newspaper print and the big gaping hole in the idea that Putin can control his country."

“A Russian tank stuck in the circus gate in Rostov—the perfect symbol for whatever happened in Russia in the last two days.” From Mattia Nelles.

The headline comes from Catherine Belton:

The world remains baffled about what happened in Russia over the weekend. No one can make heads or tails of it. But newspapers must be filled with words, so last week’s authorities on deep-water submersion have duly become Russia experts and thousands of columns have been filed that basically say nothing.

Russians seem no less baffled than everyone else:

As of this morning, Kommersant was reporting that Prigozhin remains under investigation for inciting an armed mutiny even though Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday that the charges against him would be dropped. (In Russian.)

They also report that Shoigu has been seen—on video, at least. The Kremlin released a video showing him pointedly inspecting something. So he’s not been relieved of his command, it seems.

Update: The video seems to be an old one.

Prigozhin’s whereabouts are unknown.

Wagner has not been disarmed.

No one has heard a word about the past weekend’s events from the Russian president, prime minister, defense minister, chief of the military, minister of the interior, nor anyone else you’d expect to have something to say about them.

In the absence of a coherent account of what we just saw, a lot of people have filled the void with very dumb theories.