Russian state media blamed Prigozhin, but some criticism of Putin surfaced

The opening line of the Kremlin’s main weekly news program on Sunday evening made clear the official position regarding the 24-hour mutiny organized by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the mercenary leader who sent his troops to Moscow only to withdraw them at the last minute. .

“Armed mutiny in Russia is not supported by society,” said Dmitry Kiselyov, a host and senior Kremlin propagandist whose program – Vesti Nedelu or “News of the Week” – sets the tone for the government’s monopoly on broadcast news. “Treason in time of war is a grave crime.”

The newscast then fully showed Mr Putin’s vehement 5-minute speech from Saturday morning, in which he accused Mr Prigozhin of stabbing Russia in the back without mentioning his name.

Within hours of that speech, vows that Mr. Prigozhin would face criminal charges for his actions had evaporated. All news outlets carried the statement of Dmitri S. Peskov, the presidential spokesman, who broke the dramatic tension by announcing a behind-the-scenes deal attributed to President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of neighboring Belarus. In return for his resignation, Mr. Prigozhin was granted safe passage out of the country and his troops were pardoned.

Mr Kiselyov’s extensive report on Sunday evening suggested that Mr Prigozhin had found little popular support for his uprising, resorting to flowery language to describe the turnaround: “The armored column ran out of fuel and the feeling that the head of the mutineers, Prigozhin, about to evaporate in bloody steam, strengthened.

In short, the program concluded that Mr. Prigozhin was a traitor whose act of defiance meant little in the light of Russian unity.

NTV, another state broadcaster, repeated the same theme in its weekly schedule, calling the uprising a betrayal. It alluded to the involvement of foreign powers – the Kremlin’s standard bogeyman – by citing reports that US intelligence was aware of the impending uprising but remained silent about it.

While state television is the main source of news for the older generation, younger Russians rely on Telegram, a social media app, which has been flooded with news and commentary – not all of them reliable.

An influential group of pro-war bloggers who supported the war effort yet were critical of it ran into trouble. They were caught between their admiration for Mr. Prigozhin and his mercenary army and their horror at the wounds his rebellion had inflicted.

A blogger, Yuri Kotenok, wondered aloud on Telegram on Sunday where the military leadership had disappeared to during the crisis. The main targets of Prigozhin’s wrath – the defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, and the military chief of staff, Vitaly V. Gerasimov – have not been seen or heard from since the uprising began.

“Where were you the day this happened?” He wrote. “Or can you only do videos when there’s no threat of putting on the president a show? Come to your senses, this is not a show. The country has been at war for a year now.”

Even as analysts outside Russia suggested that the brief uprisings had greatly damaged President Vladimir V. Putin’s reputation as infallible and invincible, the Russian government media predictably cast the day as an overall victory for Moscow.

But a few Russian voices suggested that the problems exposed by the mutiny should be addressed.

Moskovsky Komsomolets, a dirty tabloid headlined: “Prigozhin leaves, problems remain: deep political consequences of a failed coup.” (Mr Prigozhin insisted he was not instigating a coup, but was merely trying to force a change in top military leadership.)

The tabloid suggested that “the highest power in the country” had caused the problem by allowing illegal militias to flourish, weakening the state’s monopoly on violence.

Everyone was amazed at the impunity with which Mr. Prigozhin had been allowed to criticize the top military, the tabloid said. (Independent analysts outside Russia noted that ordinary protesters face lengthy jail terms for similar statements, but that went unreported in the state-run media.)

“This created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty and trampled on the reputation of the authorities,” wrote Mikhail Rostovsky, a columnistadding that the mutiny showed the world that Russia was vulnerable.

“Yevgeny Prigozhin will go to Belarus, but the problems caused by him (to be honest, not only by him) will remain,” said the columnist, “it will be so difficult to solve them .”

Alina Lobzina And Milan Mazeva reporting contributed.