Vladimir Putin faced an unprecedented challenge to his authority. What could his eventual end look like?

By Emily Clark for the ABC

When Yevgeny Prigozhin challenged his leader and former friend, he fractured the hard edge of Vladimir Putin's power.

Now, with the Russian president having threatened the Wagner boss and notorious warlord with criminal charges, he is attempting to seal up that crack, but what is broken can rarely be whole again.

The mutiny was an unprecedented challenge to Putin's authority and the first sign those around him could be willing to turn on the Russian president.

The revolt provided a live and unfolding example of what happens when someone demands something of the "supreme commander-in-chief".

Ukraine, now entering its 17th month of defending its territory, watched as its invaders fought among themselves.

As the war grinds on and the traitor Prigozhin is allowed to live on in exile, the question must be asked: Is the chaos Vladimir Putin has created closing in on him?

Putin will eventually fall.

Kyle Wilson, former Australian diplomat in Moscow, Russia analyst and current visiting fellow at the Centre for European Studies at ANU, said ultimately, there were two options.

"He will either die in office because he amended the constitution, in effect to make him president for life, or he will be ousted while he's in office - one of those two things will happen," he said.

"What we cannot say is when that might happen."

Russian history provides a few clues as to how the president could be ousted from office and what conditions could lead to that end.

There are new dynamics at play, too, and the secretive, mafia-like state where "mistrust and deceit prevail and self-interest rules", could easily produce some surprises.

"Russia's political landscape has changed fundamentally, with Putin's uncontested reign over," leading Russia expert and former ambassador to Moscow Peter Tesch wrote for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

"His hitherto unquestioned authority is compromised, perhaps fatally."

Friends with firepower

Putin has now admitted to funding Prigozhin and Wagner, and some experts suggest a generous payment to the warlord may have even been part of the deal that saw the mutiny aborted.

Wagner is far from the only Russian private military company and Prigozhin is not the only strongman in Putin's network who has been allowed to hire his own army.

Open-source intelligence group Molfar claims to have identified at least 37 groups and has mapped their connections to the Kremlin.

These groups are green-lit and endorsed by the president himself, even if they are technically illegal.

But these outfits are heavily armed and, in the wake of Prigozhin's challenge, some analysts now believe they are a threat Putin has allowed to fester.

In some scenarios, the president would not hold the monopoly on violence.

"I didn't think that this was likely until [last] weekend, but now Putin has demonstrated how weak he is, how little support he's got across the military, and National Guard and interior troops," Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of the Washington-based think tank Silverado Policy Accelerator, said on his podcast Geopolitics Decanted.

Alperovitch said the FSB would not be enough "to stop an armed insurrection".

"It's not enough to stop your highly capable paramilitaries. These guys are armed to the teeth with the best of Russian weapons. They were running PANTSIR air-defence systems, literally the most modern air-defence systems.

"So this is a major problem that Putin is facing."

Prigozhin's forces shot six helicopters and a plane out of the sky on his march towards Moscow, but he was not met with force from Russian services.

Vladimir Putin could not risk civilian deaths.

"It was not just Prigozhin's private army which was marching on the highway, but also the private cars, and people were following, and that made it very hard for Putin's regular army to either bomb or shoot any of Prigozhin's troops because they were mixed with the population," Russia expert and visiting fellow to ANU Leonid Petrov said.

While this was playing out, Moscow's elite were starting to enact their exit strategies.

"Because [Prigozhin's] army would bring the angry population of Russians to the capital, and the slaughter will begin," Dr Petrov said.

"So oligarchs, particularly those who have offshore bank accounts and who have been preparing an exit strategy for a long time, realised that was the moment of truth for them to take their private jet and fly away."

Tatiana Stanovaya from the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre told the New Yorker her intelligence was that if Prigozhin had reached Moscow "people wouldn't have risen up to defend Putin and his regime".

"The elites would have dispersed, citizens would have rushed to withdraw their money from banks and fled, and those who couldn't would have adopted a wait-and-see approach," she said.

"This serves as an important lesson for us - with Putin appearing increasingly detached and the elites feeling anxious and desperate, it's possible for someone to rise and challenge the regime.

"Prigozhin's mutiny will only amplify these risks."

Civil war or uprising

For a Russian power player to overthrow Vladimir Putin, the Russian forces would have to either step aside and do nothing or be part of the coup.

"It's really only the army that could oust Putin, or one other force and that's the Russian people," Wilson said.

"How much opposition or disillusionment there is among the Russian populace with this war in Ukraine we just don't know, but Russian history suggests that there is a tipping point, rather like a bucket being filled, drop by drop with water, at which [point] a sufficiently large number of people come out into the streets to threaten Putin."

In an address after Prigozhin's mutiny had been dealt with, Putin once again referenced Russian history, saying: "A blow like this was dealt to Russia in 1917, when the country was fighting in the first world war."

According to Putin, victory had been stolen and that "intrigues, squabbles and politicking behind the backs of the army and the nation" caused the army and state to collapse, leading to civil war.

It was a surprising comparison, and historians and analysts were quick to point out Putin had the order of events confused.

"The most ridiculous part of his speech was saying that it was like 1917, in the sense it was like a stab in the back which snatched defeat from the jaws of victory," former senior Australian diplomat in Russia and Eastern Europe Jon Richardson said.

"The army was already disintegrating and in terrible condition. That's partly why the tsar abdicated and his regime fell apart."

Petrov said he believed history was repeating.

"From day one, it was pretty clear Putin is creating [conditions] for the internal, domestic civil war in Russia," he said.

"He is antagonising one group of [the] population against the other, he is letting criminals out of prison, arming them, sending them to the front line."

Dr Petrov said he believed "it was just a matter of time" before there was a confrontation between the regime and Prigozhin.

"We saw that in the 19th century in China, or in the Russian Civil War in the early 20th century when warlords had their private armies," he said.

"Firstly, they would attack the power, the regime, then they would start struggling against each other and, finally, one group will prevail over the other."

Russia's 2024 election

Russians will vote in presidential elections in March next year, which means Vladimir Putin will have to declare his intention to run or not in November.

There is no expectation that he will step down, but as Peter Tesch wrote: "He now is damaged goods, and badly damaged at that."

Russian elections are not transparent, and last time a vote returned Putin to power monitors found the result to be "pre-ordained and unfair", but the event itself might present an opportunity.

Richardson said the vote "could be a moment that provokes some rethinking amongst the different parts of the elite".

"I don't think he'll be giving up easily, but that could be a moment when different forces decide maybe this guy's outlived his usefulness," he said.

In recent days, rumours that Putin's former bodyguard Alexei Dyumin is being groomed as his successor have reignited.

"He was the one who met with Prigozhin. Maybe that's why he was approached, maybe it's just pure coincidence but maybe not," Petrov said.

"Maybe Dyumin was supposed to discuss it and now we know the name of the successor."

Petrov said that would allow messaging along the lines of "it was Dyumin who saved Russia not just from mutiny, but from civil war, from another revolution".

Wilson doubted there was a successor in Putin's mind, but said any eventual and legitimate name would need to remain a state secret.

"Because if you think about it, inevitably, once that name appears and people start to think about a successor, then power doesn't just seep away from Putin, it flows away from him," he said.

"People will start to leave him and associate themselves with the successor."

Given the choice, most experts agree Vladimir Putin will remain in the Kremlin for as long as he can.

He has already passed legislation to lift age limits on office holders and that change means he can lead Russia until at least the age of 83.

"My view is that there is no successor and Putin will die in office, either peacefully or he will be ousted," Wilson said.

London-based political scientist and Russian expert Mark Galeotti wrote in The Economist that this crisis would leave Vladimir Putin "less able to cope with the next one".

"Having created an elite of ruthless opportunists who supported him less out of conviction than self-interest, he must now fear the day when enough of them conclude that the risk of moving against him is outweighed by the danger of leaving him in power."

* This story was first published by the ABC