Putin embraced unrest, and now his leadership is rattling.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia always seemed to thrive on chaos. Now it threatens to consume him.

In recent months, as mercenary chief Yevgeny V. Prigozhin escalated his feud with the Russian military, Mr. Putin did not publicly reveal any discomfort with his tirades. The silence fostered the kind of political ambiguity that has long been a trademark of Putin’s rule: a management style in which he seemed comfortable with conflicts among the elite because they kept potential rivals in check, while emphasizing that ultimate authority always rested with the president himself.

Now that approach has backfired. On Saturday, Mr Prigozhin’s forces seized control of key military facilities in the southwestern city of Rostov-on-Don and threatened to march on Moscow, posing the most dramatic challenge to Mr Putin’s regime since he came to power on December 31. acting President of Russia was appointed. , 1999.

Mr Putin’s tolerance for Mr Prigozhin’s outbursts this year may have served his political purposes, but it led officials, baffled by Mr Prigozhin’s verbal attacks on the Russian summit, to conclude that he needed the tacit support of the president relished, analysts said. It also further encouraged Mr. Prigozhin.

“They were trying to decipher Putin’s behavior because Putin was silent,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, referring to senior officials in the Kremlin and in the security services.

The confusion over Putin’s personal views did not end until Saturday morning when the president delivered a five-minute speech to the nation in which he described Prigozhin — without naming him — as a traitor and vowed to end the paramilitary leader’s insurgency. suppress. started. But the damage had already been done.

There was no sign that Putin’s grip on power was about to crumble. Other powerful men at the nodes of Putin’s informal power structure — such as Ramzan Kadyrov, the stronghold leader of Russia’s southern Chechnya region, who controls his own paramilitary force — publicly expressed support for the president on Saturday.

Still, the events were a striking consequence of the informal power structure Putin built up in his 23 years at the helm of Russia. For more than two decades, the system has helped Putin secure his unparalleled authority and ensure that he personally held the keys to wealth and influence in modern Russia.

People who know Putin say the president has always felt comfortable with that personalized system, as it allowed him to entrust important tasks to a trusted inner circle while also preventing the rise of rival cliques that could undermine him. prevent. And it left state institutions – from the courts to parliament to the news media to the many security services – remaining mere instruments in internal power games brokered by Mr Putin, rather than sources of influence in their own right.

A Russian business magnate, reflecting on Mr Prigozhin’s rise as he spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Mr Putin’s approach to his rule has always been “divide and conquer”. As another put it, referring to Russia’s rival law enforcement authorities, “You never know who will arrest you.”

A judo sparring partner from Putin’s youth became a construction billionaire and built the famous bridge from Putin to Crimea. Friends from Mr. Putin’s KGB days now oversee Russia’s military industrial complex And his oil sector. A friend from St. Petersburg in the 90s is entrusted control of Russia’s main private media assets and of the bank allegedly at the center of Mr Putin’s own financial dealings.

And then there was Mr. Prigozhin, whom Mr. Putin met more than 20 years ago as a restaurateur in St. Petersburg. He turned those personal ties into lucrative government contracts and presented himself as a ruthless, versatile problem solver on behalf of the Kremlin.

In 2016, as the Kremlin tried to redirect the US presidential election to Donald J. Trump, Mr. Prigozhin plunged into the fray with an internet “troll factory” waging an “information war against the United States.” As Russia worked to expand its reach in Syria and Africa, Mr. Prigozhin deployed his growing Wagner mercenary force in those regions – allowing the Kremlin to project power while minimizing Russian military boots on the ground.

In Ukraine, Mr Prigozhin says, Wagner forces were deployed only after Mr Putin’s initial invasion plan failed. For much of the first year of the war, Mr. Prigozhin was above the law, touring Russian prisons recruiting thousands of convicts to bolster his force.

Early this year, the Kremlin appeared to be taking some steps to limit Prigozhin’s rise. Television commentators were ordered not to name him on air, and he lost his ability to recruit convicts.

But Mr. Putin seemed hesitant about his own support for Mr. Prigozhin. In May, he congratulated Wagner mercenaries for their role in the capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, in a statement Posted on the Kremlin website. Weeks later, he supported the Ministry of Defense’s push for mercenaries to sign service contracts with the Russian military before July 1, a demand that infuriated Mr. Prigozhin.

As Putin rushes to put down an uprising he warned on Saturday could lead to “anarchy and fratricide,” Prigozhin looms as the creation of the Russian president himself.

Mr Prigozhin “had no real independent power base other than the favor of the president,” said Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russia’s military and security services. “However this goes, it undermines Putin’s credibility and legitimacy.”

Neil MacFarquhar reporting contributed.