Michael Weiss and James Rushton report:

Two days after the Wagner Group’s stunning, short-lived rebellion inside Russia seemingly ended in a deal that saw the mercenaries’ boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, fly to exile in Belarus, more questions than answers remain.

According to Russian state media, all charges against those involved in the uprising have now been dropped. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who delivered a brief, combative speech Monday, called Wagner militants “patriots,” and said they were led by the nose into coming within a few hours’ drive from Moscow by “traitors.”

Whatever the outcome of the brief standoff between Putin and Prigozhin, however, there is one beneficiary of Russian soldiers shooting at each other: Ukraine.

As Wagner forces pushed hundreds of miles through Russia on Saturday, the Russian Air Force suffered its worst day in Ukraine in months, losing six helicopters and an airborne command post in a few hours. Additionally, anywhere from 10,000 to 25,000 Wagner mercenaries look poised to leave the battlefield in Ukraine for the foreseeable future just as Kyiv has launched its springtime counteroffensive.

“All in all, it’s obviously good for Ukraine,” Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, said on Monday. “Just how good for Ukraine remains to be seen.” [Continue reading…]