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In this week’s edition: EU summit week preview, enlargement update and Belgrade-Pristina woes.

It was the first coup attempt in Russia in three decades – and the first show of weakness for Putin’s regime.

For some observers, the parallels were striking: Military men in motley uniforms taking over the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday morning, heading to Moscow, revived images of ‘little green men’ taking over Crimea and eastern Ukraine in a covert invasion in 2014.

This weekend’s attempted blitz-takeover by the Wagner mercenary group was the first step in an armed mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who rose from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s personal chef to Russia’s most infamous battlefield commander.

Wagner’s mutiny came sixteen months into the war against Ukraine, which has battered Russia’s economy due to a series of Western sanctions and an exodus of foreign capital.

For Russia, it also cost tens of thousands of lives and created a dangerous mishmash of competing militias and security forces.

Putin’s pledge on Saturday to crush the attempted coup, calling Wagner’s mutiny a “stab in the back” and warning of civil war, left little to no room for compromise.

“What we are dealing with is treason. Unchecked ambitions and personal interests have brought about the betrayal of our country and our people,” Putin said.

Prigozhin issued a defiant audio-recorded response, saying his Wagner troops no longer wanted to live “under corruption, lies, and bureaucracy”.

As quick and unexpected as it started, the standoff ended.

When Prigozhin announced on Saturday evening that Wagner mercenaries had abandoned their attempted insurrection just hours before a potential assault on Moscow, there was a hint of surprise.

There is surely a lot of room for speculation over motives and reasons.

It’s likely Prigozhin might have realised he couldn’t take Moscow. He may have hoped for the support of Russia’s security services and the population, but it did not quite materialise.

What is clear is that he agreed to leave Russia for Belarus as part of a Lukashenko-brokered deal, with charges against him to be dropped, the Kremlin said.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said that fighters from Prigozhin’s militia would not be charged “because of their deeds on the front”.

He added that some Wagner fighters who “came to their senses” and had not taken part in the uprising would sign contracts with the Russian Defence Ministry.

What will happen to Prigozhin now remains uncertain. But, to cite a widely circulated meme, one does not simply attack and expose Putin, march almost up to Moscow and get away with it.

Prigozhin’s open challenge to the Kremlin on Russian soil is a fact that Putin can no longer ignore.

It might be too soon to say whether Putin will fall anytime soon, but for some, the developments in Russia are a possible game-changer – Russia increasingly looks like a failed state.

For policymakers, the bigger question is, how to deal with the unpredictability of it?

Europeans were on high alert and ‘monitoring the situation closely’ as the biggest threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leadership continued to unfold. It was a calm and unagitated reaction compared to the buzz around the events out there.

But what if Prigozhin had succeeded?

“Today the world saw that the masters of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all. Just complete chaos,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address, urging Western allies to use the moment and send more weapons to Kyiv.

Its military services reported on late Saturday an offensive near villages ringing Bakhmut, which was taken by Wagner forces in May after months of fighting.

Kyiv also claimed the liberation of Krasnohorivka village in Donetsk, but gains were incremental.

Chaos in Russia works to Ukraine’s advantage, but it remains to be seen whether Kyiv can capitalise on the disorder caused this weekend as mercenaries marched towards Moscow.

EU IN THE WORLD

FAC PREVIEW | EU foreign ministers are scheduled to discuss continued support to Ukraine, also in the context of Russia’s latest instability. Ministers are also expected to endorse the already politically approved €3.5 billion second top-up of the European Peace Facility (EPF) after months of negotiations. Plus, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is expected to zoom in via video link.

Other agenda items include preparations for the EU-Latin America summit next month, a debate about digital diplomacy and the situation in Tunisia.

BELGRADE-PRISTINA | Leaders of Serbia and Kosovo failed to agree in EU-mediated crisis talks in Brussels this week on efforts to end weeks of violence in predominantly Serb areas of northern Kosovo. EU’s chief diplomat Borrell is expected to brief foreign ministers on Monday to decide about the bloc’s next steps.

EUCO PREVIEW | While for EU leaders later this week continued support to Ukraine will be high on the agenda, another major discussion point will be the EU’s shiny new economic strategy document, in which the bloc has laid out plans for a series of tools to counter China and Russia’s increasing readiness to use trade and the control of critical supply chains to its geopolitical advantage.

ROUND 11 | After weeks of wrangling, the EU this week agreed to an 11th package of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, designed to prevent third countries and companies from circumventing the bloc’s existing measures.

ENLARGEMENT LATEST

ORAL UPDATE | As Ukraine and Moldova have made good reform progress and are expected to wrap them up in the next months, while bigger efforts are required from Georgia, an internal European Commission update, seen by EURACTIV ahead of publication, said this week.

While the trio are expected to pick up the pace on reform efforts this summer in their bids for EU membership, the EU is only moving slowly towards its own reform debate.

SCHENGEN PUSH | European institutions are preparing to admit Bulgaria and Romania to Schengen this year, with visa-free travel by air expected in October, followed by the abolition of land border controls by 1 January, EURACTIV has learnt.

DEFENCE CORNER

SLIGHT INCREASE |The European Commission proposed to bolster the EU’s defence research and development as part of its mid-term budget review, re-prioritising it through a slight budget increase.

NEUTRALITY DEBATE | Ireland has launched a four-day public consultation this week to review the country’s neutral stance as Russia’s war in Ukraine has reshuffled Europe’s security architecture.

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