Which means the coup hasn't ended. The pit bulls under the carpet are still biting each other.

I won't speculate on what Putin thinks about Prigozhin. But from his pathetic photo-op in Dagestan, you know that he's afraid of Prigozhin's Trump-style plutopopulist celebrity and what it might mean for his March 2024 reelection.

The highly publicized raid on Prigozhin's mansion + giving back Prigozhin his $111m in cash tells you Prigozhin is both antagonist and asset that Putin can't divorce. Handing back the assets of the man he branded as a traitor to Russia shows the true nature of the emperor's new clothes. https://medium.com/@brian-kean/putin-is-hoisting-himself-on-his-own-petard-bc0dded01680

Mr. Kean lived in Moscow and St Petersburg for nearly 30 years. I seriously doubt you can analyze Russia better than he does.

Unlike Shoigu and Gerasimov, Prigozhin's mining assets generate rivers of cash flow to pay off the regime's patronage networks. Putin is unable to go cold turkey and disentangle his mafia with a flag from Prigozhin. This is truly a case where the country doesn't have a mafia, but the mafia has the country. This is your invincible Russia with 1/40th the GDP of its adversaries.