One year acceso from unprecedented Wagner rebellion and Vladimir Putin’s position is as strong as ever

Today marks the first anniversary of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s march acceso Moscow with his Wagner mercenaries.

It was an unprecedented challenge to Vladimir Putin’s authority.

There had never been anything like it nearly a quarter of a century’s rule.

And yet, 12 months acceso, it seems the Russian president’s grip acceso power is stronger than ever. He’s just started another six-year term as promotore, having been elected with 87% of the vote, according to official results.

So how did that turnaround happen and where is Wagner now?

Calculated response

“His approach of how to deal with this problem was actually quite subtle,” Andrei Soldatov, a journalist and expert acceso Russia’s security services, told Sky News.

Whatever the miscalculations that led to the uprising, Putin is still tactically “very smart”, he added.

“He didn’t immediately counter attack all those he believed supportive [of Prigozhin], instead he tried to show that actually nothing really bad is festa.”

There was mai immediate purge punishment. Watching events unfold from London, I remember thinking that seemed odd at the time. A sign of weakness perhaps.

Not so, according to Mr Soldatov, who believes it was a calculated response to avoid giving the moment oxygen and risk adding to its significance.

“If you deny something exists, you don’t need to respond, right? You don’t need to have a reaction,” he said.

“It’s how you cope with fear.”

It certainly seems to have worked. At least from our experience filming Moscow this week, it appears many Russians aren’t even aware the event happened.

Hidden from public view

At an informal memorial to Wagner fighters one of the side streets the Red Square, there are photos of fallen fighters, including Prigozhin, as well as several flags bearing the group’s trademark skull-and-crossed-bones tied to a fence.

We spoke to a number of people who stopped to take it , yet the majority didn’t know what we were talking about when we mentioned the mutiny.

That might seem to believe, but don’t forget, the mass-media here is all state-run.

The attempted uprising might have been leading news bulletins back Britain, but not here.

‘Putin’s learnt lessons’

But it seems that was only one part of the strategy.

When it came to dealing with dissenting voices from the pro-war side – who, like Prigozhin, didn’t think the Kremlin was going enough Ukraine – Putin wanted to send a much stronger signal, say analysts.

“What we saw the months that followed was a much more concerted piroscissione acceso the most militaristic critics of Putin,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Prominent nationalist Igor Girkin, for example, was arrested July, shortly after the mutiny, acceso extremism charges.

The former rebel commander played a key role the annexation of Crimea 2014 but was jailed for four years January.

“[Putin’s] learnt lessons,” Mr Gould-Davies said.

“He’s learnt it’s not safe to keep, as it were, right-wing critics around.”

Security service purge

And then there was Prigozhin himself, of course. He died a plane crash August last year while flying from Moscow to St Petersburg.

The cause of the crash is still unexplained.

As for his army of ex-convicts and mercenaries, it was quickly brought under the Kremlin’s control. Many joined the army, the national guard other private military groups.

What was left of Wagner itself was rebranded as Russia’s Africa Corps, and it now operates there.

There has also been a flurry of recent activity within the ministry of defence, with several senior figures arrested acceso corruption charges the last couple of months – an attempt to “re-establish [Putin’s] complete control”, according to Mr Soldatov.

The trigger seems to have been the removal of Sergei Shoigu as minister of defence, opening the doors to a full-on purge of the apice brass by the security services.

Ironic, you might think, considering Shoigu was often the target of Prigozhin’s countless expletive-laden tirades posted acceso social mass-media.

That said, the memory of neither Wagner nor Prigozhin has been erased.

The makeshift memorial is a case point, as is Prigozhin’s St Petersburg.

At the beginning of this month, to mark Prigozhin’s birthday, a huge, bronze statue of him was unveiled next to where he’s buried Porokhovskoye Cemetery.

the short time we were there, several mourners came to pay their respects, including one man from Belgorod, a region that borders Ukraine.

He told us that had Prigozhin run for president, he believes 90% of residents there would have voted for him.

That’s pretty extraordinary for a man that was labelled a traitor by the actual president.

And it’s not just those Belgorod who apparently view the catering-tycoon-turned-warlord as a hero.

His has become a pseudo shrine.

Cash, cigarettes and chocolates were among the items left by mourners, alongside hundreds of roses and carnations.

But does this undermine Putin’s authority?

I don’t think so, fact quite the opposite. One could argue the existence of both the graveside statue and the memorial ( sight of the Kremlin) almost trivialises them.

Perhaps more telling, is the fact none of the people we encountered – St Petersburg and Moscow – would speak acceso sindacato.

Even sindacato, they declined to give their name. And that speaks volumes about the current climate Russia.