Donald Trump

Germany Moldova

United States Ukraine Weapons Explainer

U.S. House votes on $95 billion Ukraine-Israel package on Capitol Hill in Washington

Photographer

Training of 'Siberian Battalion' military unit in Ukraine, Kyiv - 10 Apr 2024

HANDOUT on 4/18/24

To accompany MykolaivWater sty by Michael Miller

Hill Coverage of April 16, 2024

FTWP

Donald Trump,Vladimir Putin

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin

POOL

Russia Putin

FILE PHOTO: A Ukrainian serviceman launches a mid-range reconnaissance drone type Vector for flying over positions of Russian troops near the town of Bakhmut

UKRAINE-FINLAND-RUSSIA-WAR-CONFLICT-DIPLOMACY

Contributor

Vladimir Kara-Murza

UKRAINE PRESIDENT ZELENSKY

For The Washington Post

(Brian Stauffer for The Washington Post)

Funeral Held In Kyiv For Ukrainian Soldier, Anastasia 'Troy' Maryachuk

Stringer

Ex-deputy of Russia's Duma Ilya Ponomarev attends a forum

other

Aftermath of a Russian missile attack in Odesa

UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT-WAR

Russia Putin Next Steps

Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Biden confronts campus protests; Trump hedges on accepting election results

Kristi Noem just won’t stop talking about killing her dog

Noem’s dog-killing isn’t popular, though Trump supporters are divided

The Post endorses April McClain Delaney and Tom Royals for Maryland’s 6th District

On Press Freedom Day, little to celebrate for Hong Kong’s journalists

Young Georgians want to be part of Europe. Their government is in the way.

The new cure-all for vacation excess: the IV drip 

What’s the best bus to New York? We tested 5 for comfort and value.

Adaptive equipment is making national parks more inclusive

Confident of victory over Ukraine, Russia exhibits Western war trophies

Two women are seeking Mexico’s presidency. But the race is about a man.

Hamas in Cairo for hostage talks as Israel briefs aid agencies on Rafah

Trump Media auditor charged by SEC with ‘massive fraud’

Google’s empire is massive. A judge will soon rule if it’s a monopoly.

Five tech products we actually like

The New York Times, alone in its outrage over access to Biden

The ‘Access Hollywood’ video cemented Trump’s air of invincibility

Stephen A. Smith would like even more of your attention

Ask Amy: My boyfriend just confessed he’s almost $20,000 in debt

Miss Manners: Is it inappropriate to reach out to old girlfriends?

Carolyn Hax: Longtime friend won’t forgive being last-minute canceled for a guy

Strangers help Sesame Street puppeteer after heirloom necklace was stolen

Teen grabs wheel when driver passes out and school bus veers into traffic

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

In photos: At least 39 dead as historic flooding hits southern Brazil

Sea level rise brings new era of dangerous flooding

Michael Cohen keeps broadcasting despite being a witness

In a pinch, the Nationals finally find some offense

Is Pastis as good as our food critic thought? He sent spies to find out.

The Capitals, a team in transition, know what they want this offseason

President Vladimir Putin looked into the abyss Saturday and blinked. After vowing revenge for what he called an “armed mutiny,” he settled for a compromise.

The speed with which Putin backed down suggests that his sense of vulnerability might be higher even than analysts believed. Putin might have saved his regime Saturday, but this day will be remembered as part of the unraveling of Russia as a great power — which will be Putin’s true legacy.

Putin’s deal with renegade militia leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin is likely to be a momentary truce, at best. The bombastic rebel <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/24/russia-ukraine-war-news-wagner-prigozhin/" target=_blank>will head for Belarus</a>, in a deal brokered by his pal President Alexander Lukashenko, in exchange for Putin dropping charges against him and his mutinous soldiers, according to Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov.

This was a real coup, until it wasn’t. For much of Saturday, Prigozhin was marching units of his 25,000-man Wagner militia toward the gates of Moscow, rolling through Russia’s Ukrainian command headquarters at Rostov-on-Don and north to Voronezh. Sources tell me the Russian FSB put up roadblocks along the way, to little effect. Putin called up the National Guard to defend Moscow.

Max Boot: Putin finally learns the lesson all tyrants learn

As Putin said in a blood-curdling address Saturday, this was becoming a 1917 moment, when the nation was reeling from another misbegotten war and, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/24/vladimir-putin-russia-wagner-statement-full" target=_blank>in Putin’s words</a>, “Russians were killing Russians, brothers killing brothers.”

Throughout the day, the questions that raced through Washington and other world capitals was whether Prigozhin would continue his “march for justice” on the capital — and if Putin would order Russian troops to fire on the rebels to halt their advance. Sources tell me that as the Wagner forces moved north, the regular army neither followed nor hindered them.

Only madmen jump into the abyss in situations like this, and neither Putin nor Prigozhin is crazy. This was like a game of chicken where both cars swerve in the end, or a duel where both fighters shoot in the air, to fight another day.

Putin had only bad choices, and he knew it. Chechen forces commanded by Ramzan Kadyrov would have been the vanguard of his attack on Wagner in Rostov; that would have been a savage mess. Putin<b> </b>couldn’t be sure whether regular army units would obey his orders. He was walking into a situation he couldn’t control. Putin doesn’t do that — with the exception of his insane miscalculation invading Ukraine.

What’s notable about this mad 24 hours is that Putin managed to defuse the crisis without any big military confrontation. He has been humbled by a headstrong crony, to be sure, but he’s still in control. It was a close shave, not a decapitation.

Putin is easy to caricature, but he has an unusual gift, if one can call it that, for authoritarian rule. With his ice-blue eyes, he embodies the phrase “never let them see you sweat.” He lets others feud beneath him, refusing to intervene over the past year as Prigozhin lobbed almost daily insults at Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Putin acts as if it’s beneath him to dirty his hands in such petty quarrels.

But Saturday was different. With his invocation of 1917, Putin took Russians back to the shattering domestic strikes that followed their reversals in World War I. “Intrigues and arguments behind the army’s back turned out to be the greatest catastrophe, destruction of the army and the state, loss of huge territories, resulting in a tragedy and a civil war,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/24/vladimir-putin-russia-wagner-statement-full" target=_blank>he said</a> Saturday.

Now as then, he said, the enemy was external. “Against us, the whole military, economical and information machines of the West are turned,” he said. That toxic mixture of Russian insecurity and national pride continues to be Putin’s fuel as a leader.

Alexei Navalny in 2022: This is what a post-Putin Russia should look like

The Biden administration’s response to this mad day in Russia seemed to be a version of the advice attributed to Napoleon: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” That, as well as the usual Biden prescription: focus on allies and partners.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">President Biden</a> and his team stayed in contact with foreign leaders. White House and State Department officials spoke to the other major democracies, known as the Group of Seven; they added India and Australia as members of the “Quad.” They consulted with NATO and the European Union.

The message in all these calls, I’m told, was “cool it.” Don’t make the crisis in Russia more dangerous by seeking to intervene or profit from the disarray. This message was focused especially on Ukraine; U.S. officials stressed their desire that Kyiv not seem to take advantage of the strife in Russia in ways that might spiral into an even more dangerous moment. The Ukrainians, from what we can see, followed that advice.

What comes next, surely, is more trouble for Putin in Ukraine. Prigozhin told the truth flat out in the days before his march on Moscow. Ukraine didn’t threaten Russia, and Russia’s invasion was unnecessary — a mistake of epic proportions. Even Putin, the ice man, can’t freeze the burning truth of his Ukraine disaster.

2018 Finalist team, Pulitzer Prize for Public Service

2018 George Polk Award

2010 Urbino International Press Award

2013 Overseas Press Club Award for Foreign Affairs Commentary

Lifetime Achievement Award, International Committee for Foreign Journalists

Legion D'Honneur awarded by the French government

2004 Edward Weintal Prize

2000 Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary

As The Post’s foreign editor, Ignatius supervised the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait

The Paladin

The Quantum Spy

The Director

Bloodmoney

The Increment

Body of Lies

The Sun King

A Firing Offense

The Bank of Fear

SIRO

Agents of Innocence

Harvard College

Kings College, Cambridge

David Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. His latest novel is “The Paladin.” 

David Ignatius

Wagner's Russia march was Putin and Prigozhin playing game of chicken

the-washington-post

Russia Ukraine

Verified videos

Donbas region

Russian combat capabilities

HIMARS

War in Ukraine

washpost

prism://prism.query/global-opinions-english-only&limit=20

Global Opinions

The Washington Post's Global Opinions section.

Sign up for the Prompt 2024 newsletter for opinions on the biggest questions in politics

Opinions

Washington Post Opinions

The Washington Post Opinions section features opinion articles, op-eds, editorials by the Editorial Board, global opinions and letters to the editor on the issues of the day. Offerings include columns by Washington Post opinion writers, political cartoons by editorial cartoonists Ann Telnaes and Michael de Adder and podcasts by Jonathan Capehart.

Need something to talk about? Text us for thought-provoking opinions that can break any awkward silence.