Well earlier than Yevgeny V. Prigozhin seized a serious Russian army hub and ordered an armed march on Moscow, posing a startling and dramatic menace to President Vladimir V. Putin, the caterer-turned-mercenary-boss was shedding his personal private warfare.

Mr. Prigozhin’s non-public military had been sidelined. His profitable authorities catering contracts had come beneath menace. The commander he most admired within the Russian army had been eliminated as the highest normal overseeing Ukraine. And he had misplaced his most important recruiting supply for fighters: Russia’s prisons.

Then, on June 13, his solely hope for a last-minute intervention to spare him a bitter defeat in his long-running energy battle with Defense Minister Sergei Okay. Shoigu was dashed.

Mr. Putin sided publicly with Mr. Prigozhin’s adversaries, affirming that every one irregular models combating in Ukraine must signal contracts with the Ministry of Defense. That included Mr. Prigozhin’s non-public army firm, Wagner.

Now, the mercenary chieftain can be subordinated to Mr. Shoigu, an unparalleled political survivor in fashionable Russia and Mr. Prigozhin’s sworn enemy.

“This must be done,” Mr. Putin instructed a gathering of government-friendly warfare correspondents on the Kremlin. “It must be done as soon as possible.”

What occurred subsequent surprised the world: Mr. Prigozhin mounted an armed rebellion that he insisted was aimed not at deposing Mr. Putin however at overthrowing the Kremlin’s army management.

The mutiny, nonetheless short-lived, has been broadly seen as an ominous political harbinger for Mr. Putin’s management, one that might presage extra instability because the Russian president presses on together with his pricey warfare.

But it’s equally the private story of an obstreperous and mercurial freelance warlord who undertook an emotional last-ditch try and win by pressure some of the extraordinary Russian energy struggles in latest reminiscence.

Many highly effective Russian figures have come out on the shedding finish of factional battles throughout Mr. Putin’s 23 years as Russia’s chief, in the end receding into exile, jail or anonymity.

But together with his insurrection over the weekend, Mr. Prigozhin selected a unique path, permitting his anguish and anger to play out for the world to see as he took actions uniquely out there to somebody with a nationwide megaphone — and a well-armed, aggrieved non-public military.

“Prigozhin’s rebellion wasn’t a bid for power or an attempt to overtake the Kremlin,” Tatyana Stanovaya, a senior fellow on the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote in an evaluation of the occasions. “It arose from a sense of desperation; Prigozhin was forced out of Ukraine and found himself unable to sustain Wagner the way he did before, while the state machinery was turning against him.’’

“To top it off,’’ she added, “Putin was ignoring him and publicly supporting his most dangerous adversaries.”

Mr. Prigozhin had constructed a large monetary and army empire. But as his political defiance grew, the movement of cash from the Defense Ministry and different authorities contracts was vulnerable to drying up. And he chafed on the prospect of taking orders from folks whom he thought-about incompetent.

Still, when Mr. Putin denounced his actions on Saturday as treason, Mr. Prigozhin appeared to have been caught off-guard, unprepared to be a real revolutionary or proceed a march on the Kremlin that he realized would virtually definitely finish in defeat, Ms. Stanovaya wrote.

And so when Mr. Prigozhin was provided an opportunity to finish the disaster by withdrawing his forces, he took it.

“Prigozhin’s mutiny was ultimately a desperate act of someone who was cornered,” stated Michael Kofman, director of Russia research on the Virginia-based analysis group CNA. “His options were narrowing as his bitter dispute intensified.”

Over the years, together with his connections to Mr. Putin and the Kremlin, Mr. Prigozhin was capable of safe profitable contracts to supply meals for the Moscow faculty system and Russian army bases, amassing nice wealth. At the identical time, he engaged in international adventurism by Wagner that suited the Kremlin, advancing Moscow’s goals — and his personal — within the Middle East and Africa, the place his fighters have been accused of indiscriminate killings and atrocities.

He additionally shepherded the Internet Research Agency, the notorious St. Petersburg troll farm that interfered within the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

So secretive was Mr. Prigozhin about his actions that he lengthy denied any affiliation with Wagner and even sued Russian media shops for reporting on his connection to the group.

All that modified final 12 months with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In September, Mr. Prigozhin went public for the primary time as the person behind Wagner.

Less than two weeks later, Mr. Putin appointed Gen. Sergei Surovikin to steer the warfare effort in Ukraine, a boon for the mercenary chief, who had labored with the overall in Syria. Mr. Prigozhin described the brand new chief as a legendary determine and probably the most succesful commander within the Russian military.

Mr. Prigozhin’s personal stature was rising, too, as his fighters gave the impression to be making progress within the drawn-out battle for the Ukrainian metropolis of Bakhmut, whereas the Russian army had little to point out. . Russian commentators lavished optimistic protection upon the mercenary group, and a glass tower in St. Petersburg was rebranded Wagner Center. Recruitment posters for the outfit went up throughout the nation.

But by the start of this 12 months, Mr. Prigozhin’s adversaries within the Ministry of Defense started reasserting their energy.

In January, Mr. Putin appointed Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, to interchange General Surovikin as the highest commander of operations in Ukraine. Mr. Prigozhin steadily belittled General Gerasimov in his Telegram audio messages, implying that he was an office-bound official of the sort that smothers common troopers with paperwork.

The enmity seems thus far at the very least to Moscow’s intervention in Syria’s civil warfare, when Wagner and common Russian troopers generally clashed as they competed for assets and the spoils of warfare, in accordance with the revealed memoirs of two Wagner veterans. Mr. Prigozhin himself went public about these tensions in Syria final 12 months.

In February, Mr. Prigozhin acknowledged that his entry to Russian prisons to recruit had been minimize off. The Defense Ministry would later start recruiting prisoners there itself, adopting Mr. Prigozhin’s tactic.

Tension between Wagner and the Russian army — lengthy alluded to by Russian army bloggers — exploded into the open. By the top of February, Mr. Prigozhin was publicly accusing Mr. Shoigu and General Gerasimov of treason, claiming that they had been intentionally withholding ammunition and provides from Wagner to destroy it.

At the top of February, Mr. Putin tried to settle the feud by calling Mr. Prigozhin and Mr. Shoigu into a gathering, in accordance with leaked intelligence documents .

But the rivalry would solely escalate. No longer capable of recruit prisoners, Wagner was compelled to rely more and more on its restricted provide of expert veteran fighters to proceed waging battle in Bakhmut, in accordance with Ukrainian and Western officers.

Isolated from the Moscow energy middle, Mr. Prigozhin more and more turned to his bully pulpit: social media. His messages additionally grew much more political as he started interesting on to the Russian folks. He started voicing criticisms that, in a rustic with a legislation in opposition to discrediting the armed forces, few others dared make.

What had as soon as been sharp-tongued trolling of the Russian brass over time changed into common eruptions of bile.

“You stinking beasts, what are you doing? You swine!” he stated in a single recording in late May. “Get your asses out of your offices, which you were given to protect this country.’’

He went on to lambast the Russian defense leadership for “sitting on their big asses smeared with expensive creams” and to say the Russian folks had each proper to ask questions of them. He posted ugly photographs of Wagner troopers killed in motion. He gave ultimatums about pulling his troops out of Bakhmut. He even took what was broadly seen as a swipe at Mr. Putin, with out naming him, with a reference to a “grandpa’’ who might be “a complete jackass.‘’

Kremlinologists were puzzled as to why Mr. Putin did not just sweep the Wagner chief aside, or intervene and rein him in; some analysts suggested that he favored competing factions operating underneath him, with none gaining too much power. Others wondered if the Russian leader had become too isolated to solve the problem or simply did not have sufficient control.

Mr. Prigozhin’s forces captured Bakhmut at the end of May and soon after departed the battlefield, accusing the Russian military of mining the road they used to leave and briefly apprehending a Russian lieutenant colonel on the way out. That left Mr. Prigozhin newly vulnerable. Wagner was no longer needed to finish off a battle that had been played up by the Russian media.

By June, his isolation became palpable.

Mr. Prigozhin signaled a rift with the Ministry of Defense over his military catering contracts, which have helped fuel his wealth and influence for more than a decade. In a publicized letter to Mr. Shoigu dated June 6, Mr. Prigozhin said the food he had supplied to Russian military bases and institutions since 2006 had amounted to a total of 147 billion rubles — $1.74 billion — a figure that is impossible to verify. Now, he complained, “high-level people” had been attempting to pressure him to simply accept firms related to them as his suppliers. He additionally stated a brand new system of “loyal suppliers”threatened his value construction and will ship a blow to his enterprise repute.

His desperation appeared to be rising.

On June 10, one in every of Mr. Shoigu’s deputies introduced that every one formations combating outdoors the Russian army’s formal ranks would want to signal a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry by July 1.

Mr. Prigozhin initially refused, however then Mr. Putin backed Mr. Shoigu’s plan. In the times that adopted, Mr. Prigozhin launched a number of audio and video messages exhibiting what gave the impression to be makes an attempt to succeed in a deal on his phrases.

In one video, revealed on June 16, he exhibits himself delivering a “contract” to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, however a receptionist behind a caged sales space shortly closes the window in his face.

In the times earlier than he led Saturday’s rebellion, Mr. Prigozhin started expressing emotions of resignation, saying that not one of the issues plaguing the Russian army can be fastened. He additionally talked concerning the nation rising up, saying that Mr. Shoigu ought to be executed and suggesting that the family members of these killed within the warfare would precise their revenge on incompetent officers.

“Their mothers, their wives, their children will come and eat them alive when the time comes,” he stated in a June 6 video interview, suggesting there is likely to be a “popular revolt.”

He added, “I can tell you, honestly, I think we have only about two to three months before the executions.”