From a New York Times news analysis by Anton Troianovski headlined “Putin embraced turmoil, and now it is rattling his leadership”:

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

For the last few months, as the mercenary chieftain Yevgeny V. Prigozhin escalated his feud with the Russian military, Mr. Putin did not publicly reveal any discomfort with his diatribes. The silence fostered the kind of political ambiguity that has long been a trademark of Mr. Putin’s rule: tolerating, even encouraging, conflict among the elite because it kept potential rivals in check, while underscoring that ultimate authority always rested with the president himself.