On Friday June 23 2023, Prigozhin ordered 25,000 of his troops on to a march for justice, which duly set out to confront the Russian president in Moscow
Blink and you could have missed it. Within 36 hours, the challenge mounted against the Kremlin by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary private military company the Wagner Group, was over.
If nothing else, Chinese president Xi Jinping's call to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky signals that China is getting serious with its mediation efforts not least because of increasing tensions in the western alliance and doubts about the success of a Ukrainian counteroffensive, writes Stefan Wolff and Tatyana Malyarenko.
After more than a year of no direct communication, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had a phone conversation on Wednesday.