Lukashenko did broker peace

President Lukashenko did negotiate a peaceful outcome with Prozhhgeny, according to his account, and prevent a bloodbath. If he is telling the truth I suppose he is to be congratulated. I see no reason to think that he is not telling the truth.

I suppose Prozhhgeny is worse than President Putin. But chaos in Russia would presumably help Ukraine.

My hope is for Russia to return to being a conservative, Christian, constitutional monarchy, as little like Joe Biden's USA as possible. Lots of nice young Russians were monarchists who admired Stolypin, when I met them years ago. Alas it seems unlikely at the moment. The monarchists are the true Russia (and the true France).

Sir Lawrence Freedman is interesting on the subject here. He thinks Prigozhin could have captured Moscow.

Lastly, when his options looked bad, [Putin] chose negotiation, showing little interest in martyrdom and leaving flight as his last resort. He agreed a deal that made a nonsense of his promises to punish the mutineers.  If he was irresolute in this case then might he be so in another? If the fighting takes another turn for the worse can he really afford to reject negotiations when there is no serious hope of incorporating the claimed chunk of Ukraine into the Russian Federation? A lot of recent thinking about the likely course of the war assumed Putin’s intransigence and his ability to cope with regular setbacks so long as Russia could stay in the war. That assumption will be easier to challenge.

Putin cares about his survival, whether from Covid or coups. The unintended consequences of this war are now threatening his regime. Any suggestion that he wants to get out of the war will aggravate the image of weakness; sticking with the war regardless of losses will aggravate his actual weaknesses.