One Winner From the Prigozhin-Putin Mess Is Already Cashing In

After negotiating with Wagner boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin to call off his staged rebellion in Russia over the weekend, Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko is already well underway on his victory lap—part of an apparent campaign to change his image as a willing puppet of Russian President Vladimir.

Experts in regional politics tell The Daily Beast that while his self-aggrandizing is predictable, Lukashenko may not have much time to cash in on the political capital he gained from swooping in just in the nick of time to keep tensions from boiling over in Russia.

“A couple of years ago when Lukashenko was on bended knee before Putin... he would not have dared to say anything like this,” Kenneth Yalowitz, a former U.S. ambassador to Belarus, said. “The only reason Lukashenko opens his mouth up like this now is that he senses weakness on Putin’s side. And he’s just trying to burnish his credentials. That to me, this is just classic Lukashenko.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.