The Broad in Los Angeles. The Shed in New York. The Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston. With her partners – Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro and Benjamin Gilmartin – Elizabeth Diller, 69, has designed some of the most unique museums of the 21st century. Born in Lodz, Poland, the son of Holocaust survivors, the architect has also been busy designing the latest look of New York City.

Diller came to the United States by boat as a child and grew up in the Bronx. She recently visited Barcelona to attend the Smart City Expo. At breakfast in a five-star hotel – she ate a roll and a soft-boiled egg with a teaspoon – she met EL PAÍS for an interview.

Ask. Would you make it to New York today like you were a kid?

Answer. No. In 1959 it was possible to start a new life in the Bronx. [But today], who could pay the rent? Most of the artists have since disappeared.

Q What do cities lose when they lose their artists?

TO. Someone who tells you the truth. When we made the shed [a cultural center in Hudson Yards] With the Rockwell Group we wanted to revisit the idea of ​​New York as a center of cultural production – and not as a place where time has stood still.

Q. Did you take unnecessary risks in building The Shed? Why build a mobile building?

TO. A theater is constantly changing. Why not move a little more? Converting an exhibition hall into an auditorium had to be something simple, electric. [Before]To save money they did it manually. Today the result is poor.

Q Is risk related to intellectual growth?

TO. Challenges strengthen me. Comfort makes me sleepy. I don’t understand taking risks for the sake of the risk – but I understand the reward after the risk. It is a source of energy, life and change. I often knew that if I took risks I would lose offers, but I didn’t know how to do anything else.

Q You’re also a professor at Princeton. Do you teach risk?

TO. I teach the students. I free them from what they have learned so they can think. Prejudice can limit thinking. I ask them how to deal with the obsolescence and speed of the world in something as slow as architecture.

When they had something half-finished, I changed the assignment and asked them to adapt it. The exercise destabilized them, they had to rethink everything. you hated me But they learned a lot.

Elizabeth Diller poses on the High Line, a project by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with James Corner Field Operations and Piet Oudolf.Vincent Tullo

Q You are one of the architects behind 21st century New York. And you came to this town when you were five years old.

TO. My parents had to say goodbye to their lives. It was traumatic. They left their past in Poland. Also her consolation: They had money there. But they came to what was considered the land of opportunity. Traumatized by the Holocaust, they wanted to flee as far as possible so that their children could have a life.

Q did you end up having it

TO. Well… they were always scared, but I studied whatever I wanted.

Q Did you have a religious childhood?

TO. In my house, religion was a cultural issue, not a spiritual one. My father was Czech and my mother Polish. They operated textile factories in Lodz. Neither he nor my mother had studied [in university]. He was an enterprising man. He spoke languages. Shortly after arriving in New York, he learned English. He was a survivor. My mother, on the other hand, never adjusted. She spoke to me in Polish – thanks to that I still speak it. Sometimes I think it was my fault: that she didn’t learn English by talking to me.

Q Her parents left Poland in 1959. Did you flee from National Socialism?

TO. Even after the war there was a lot of anti-Semitism. Even though my father wasn’t religious, he was Jewish. My father’s nine brothers and my grandparents perished in concentration camps. I ran away from this pain in New York as a kid. Today I regret not having asked more questions. But in my house, everyone wanted to forget and start over.

Q Your brother was 13 when you left.

TO. He wanted to forget. In Lodz he was bullied because he was Jewish. Here he was able to study engineering. Today he no longer identifies as a Jew.

Q You too?

TO. It depends who is asking.

Q So you have a flexible identity?

TO. A survivor’s identity. I feel European. But not particularly Polish. And at the same time, I’m a real New Yorker. I believe that my ethics and sensitivity to what is different comes from my parents.

I’ve never felt quite American, whatever that might be. I’m used to change. I’m interested in fixing things. I don’t know how this conflicts with my parents’ decision to run away from problems. But I am like that. In my work – and in my life – I confront things and try to change them. Children run away in pain. But then you realize how much guilt you end up bearing.

Q how were your parents

TO. My parents were overprotective. I think that loss scared them. The damage you take increases over a lifetime.

Q What did your parents do when they arrived in New York?

TO. You started from scratch in the Bronx. My father carried sacks full of fruit. My mother cleaned offices. At the end of his life, my father fulfilled the American dream of seeing his children go to college. I ended up running to the hotel. We have never felt poor.

Q And in this context you have decided to become an artist.

TO. What worried my mother was that she didn’t want me to be financially dependent on men. She was obsessed with it.

Q And then you go ahead and fall in love with your teacher.

TO. That also happened. But my mother always supported me. She asked me if I wanted to study architecture. When I said no, she insisted I become a dentist! She wanted me to have a job. So I studied fine arts and after two years switched to architecture. That’s where I met Rick. He was my crush.

Q You were 23 and he was 42.

TO. It’s all the more shocking that we’re still together. We have dedicated our lives to architecture.

Q It seems like you are the strong one in the relationship.

TO. Because I talk a lot. I could never have done what I did without him. He’s a great teacher and people love him.

Elizabeth Diller.Vincent Tullo

Q Do you have children?

TO. Ric has children from a previous marriage. We had none. Sometimes I think about it. I’ve spent my life procrastinating: it’s always next year and in the end that year isn’t here yet. I’m happy with the life I have. How to know what would have been better? Do you have children?

Q Two.

TO. have you stopped working

Q No. I think I would have gone insane.

TO. Rich had four. If I had asked he would have agreed to get another one but I didn’t want to force it. The only one who pressured me was my mother and… I didn’t listen to her.

Q Your mother put pressure on you to have a life of your own, but also to have children!

TO. For her it was not a contradiction. She wanted me to learn English and spoke to me in Polish! That’s why I sank when she died.

Q Was it difficult for you to create a lasting work?

TO. Building was not our passion. Ric was tired of architecture. And I was pretty rebellious. I didn’t like authority. I think he liked that about me. I was naughty as a kid. Maybe because of my parents’ overzealousness.

Q Weren’t you a good student?

TO. It was the time of the Vietnam War and I spent more time protesting than studying. I remember my youth as a perpetual protest: rallies, drugs…

Q drugs in school?

TO. It was a different era, with its difficulties and its advantages. I spent a third of my time at the university, another third at protests and the other third at MoMA [the Museum of Modern Art].

Q After a couple of decades, you approved the expansion of this museum. Who took you there for the first time?

TO. I went alone My parents liked nature and sports. And I was fascinated by the modern world. I wanted to be a sculptor.

Q How much freedom did you have in designing the MoMA extension?

TO. I know the museum by heart. I knew the problems: It was disconnected from the city. You had to walk half a mile before you could see art. It was an unnatural, artificial building – constantly crowded.

Q Do cities thrive when rents are cheap?

TO. The New York of my youth was like that. A cheap rent gives you time to create, think and live. I spent the day on the street. That opened my mind a lot.

Q Why did you finally become an architect?

TO. i wanted to learn From photography I went to cinema; and from cinema to architecture. For me, architecture seemed more able to change and defend interdisciplinary ideas.

Q The interface between the disciplines defines your work.

TO. In the art world, evidence—and even doubt—is welcome. Also insight. In architecture, you spend the day explaining why you do things.

Q Do you feel that there is a fear of what is different in your professional world?

TO. Fear is always harmful. And it always describes who expresses it more than who receives it. But we suffered. We were artists for architects and architects for artists. Our work was dissident: it didn’t fit. When it comes to scholarships or teaching positions, being in no man’s land is a problem. However, as a woman, I believe that living in New York has benefited me from what many have struggled before.

Q Did you want to belong?

TO. We don’t work with a formula. We experiment, question, mix. We have pushed the boundaries of architecture. And the architectural community thought we were geeks.

Q One of your first works was the Blur Building, erected over water in Switzerland. Can an experiment become a building?

TO. I honestly think so. But these projects were temporary. Others are short-lived without being designed to have a short lifespan. Austerity measures are often an excuse to avoid experimentation.

Elizabeth Diller pictured in The High Line – one of her best-known works – in New York City. Vincent Tullo

Q Architecture is taught today as a hybrid discipline.

TO. We have always defended the mix. We don’t know how to see it any other way.

Q John Hejduk – your teacher – felt that the act of building corrupts architecture. Do you agree?

TO. No. He believed that architecture was a discipline and not a profession. So the training I received was to relate architecture to art, literature, creativity…

Q Can you contribute to architecture without building?

TO. forks. By making laws, setting up commissions, and giving opportunities to others, cities come into being. For me, any way of creating space is architecture.

Q Do you feel the need to make groundbreaking proposals?

TO. It’s not about surprise, it’s about exploration.

Q The High Line is the restoration of thousands of old railroad tracks that have been converted into an elevated park. The project changed the life of the old structure.

TO. It is architecture that starts with the obsolete and protects nature. It has to do with our adaptability.

Q And the ability to listen to local residents.

TO. I had never heard what people said before. As I got out of the academic vision to do it, my perspective changed. After the September 11 attacks, a wave of courtesy swept through New York. We felt part of the same city. We had to take care of her [the city] and take care of ourselves. This part of Manhattan was an empty, hopeless place: a perfect place for improvement.

Q Are you in favor of citizens being asked how the city should be?

TO. Getting out of your own world is good, but it takes hours of meetings and listening. For me, the idea of ​​turning urban waste into a living part of the city was intriguing. It went from the infrastructure to the ruins, from the ruins to the garden and from the garden to the promenade.

Q Is nature more powerful than culture?

TO. nature is culture It’s less about building and more about working with nature. And with neighbors. And it cost more to remove the tracks than to maintain them. They were already covered with vegetation. In this neighborhood of New York [Hudson Yards], there were hardly any parks. The solution was to leave it almost as it was. And make it safer. It touched a nerve that needed to be touched.

Q That’s what artists do: they anticipate the future.

TO. We are so tied in front of our screens that seeing what was happening on the street seemed like a discovery!

Q What did you learn while building?

TO. That there can be a lot of creativity in the effort. [Thomas] As Edison put it, “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent sweat.” Architecture is a team effort. TO [building] Approval is more important than a line. The greatest difficulties in architecture are not of a technical nature: they arise from dealing with people.

Q It’s easier to get a building to move…

TO. Like The Shed. Oh well. Technical problems are fun and challenging. Explaining to people that what is good for one resident is good for everyone is more difficult. But I like it – it’s the story of my life. My friends flee from the fire and I run towards it.

Q how do you eat

TO. Where others see failure, I see opportunity. I remember when we were awarded the Lincoln Center expansion, Frank Gehry said, “Don’t touch it: these people are impossible.” And I thought, I’m going to prove him wrong. Of course it took a lot of energy. I had to host a conference to explain our design. I showed six different options. It’s true: everyone is afraid of change.

Q You don’t seem to be.

TO. I see it as an opportunity for growth. I came to New York at the age of five!

Q Which of your projects have reinvented New York?

TO. The expansion of Lincoln Center. Philip Johnson’s original building was designed to be accessible by car. Not ours. This marks the development of the city.

Q What can the most intellectual type of architecture contribute to those parts of the world that have limited resources?

TO. It takes a lot of intelligence to deal with scarcity and chaos. That is where the great architectural challenges lie: between the slowness [of construction]the high cost of buildings and the pressing needs of the world.

Q Has immigration prepared you for austerity?

TO. I don’t have a strict life. But I prefer one fabulous thing to a hundred good ones.

Q What is your relationship with money?

TO. I spend a lot But it doesn’t motivate me. I like the convenience and the fact that I don’t have to worry about being able to pay [architectural] Studio. But I prefer freedom to money.

Q Are you a freelance architect?

TO. i am a free person I don’t have many things: no cars, no plans, no gold. My luxury is the freedom of not having to do commercial assignments; no list of good jobs and others just paying the bills. To me that means being rich.

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Wagner Group fighters, who had occupied the Russian military headquarters in Rostov, southwestern Russia since the morning, began leaving the site in the evening, an AFP journalist noted.

🚨BREAKING: THE COUP IS OVER | Wagner’s retreat

This official statement by Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group and leader of this coup, says it all. I don’t think anyone expected this:

“They wanted to dismantle PMC Wagner. We came out on June 23rd to March… pic.twitter.com/5o1giHjypx

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) June 24, 2023

According to this journalist, Yevgeny Prigoyine’s men left in minibuses while the deployed tanks had not yet moved.

Watch or watch our special on the latest developments in Russia.

The wife of one of the victims of the Titan submarine disaster said it was her husband, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood’s “lifetime dream” to see the Titanic and that he was “like a kid” before he set out with her son on the doomed expedition.

Christine Dawood also paid tribute to her son, 19-year-old Suleman, a Strathclyde University student, who took his Rubik’s Cube with him on the trip in hopes of breaking the world record for solving the puzzle at greatest depth.

Christine and her daughter were aboard Titan’s mother ship, the Polar Prince, when word broke that they had lost communication with the submersible shortly after beginning the descent at 8 a.m. Sunday, June 18.

A major search and rescue mission was launched and lasted for days, and while her daughter clung to hope the whole time, Christine said she “lost hope once we passed the 96-hour mark.”

“That’s when I lost hope.” So I sent a message to my family on land: “I’m preparing for the worst.”

At the end of her interview with the BBC, the heartbroken mum tearfully said: ‘I miss her.’ I really, really miss her.’

Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman perished on the Titan submersible

Christine Dawood paid tribute to her son and husband in an interview with the BBC

Five people died aboard the Titan submersible after it suffered a “catastrophic implosion” 1,600 feet off the Titanic’s bow

According to the US Coast Guard, UK-based billionaire Shahzada and his son Suleman were two of the five victims who died instantly when the submersible suffered a “catastrophic implosion” just 1,600 feet from Titanic’s bow.

Christine revealed that she had planned to visit the Titanic wreck in the OceanGate submarine with her husband but her trip was canceled due to the Covid pandemic.

“Then I took a step back and gave them space to settle in.” [Suleman] “Get up because he really wanted to go,” she said.

After contact with the ship was lost, Christine and her 17-year-old daughter Alina waited for news at the spot where Titan was last seen during the search and rescue mission.

“We had loads of hope, that was the only thing that kept us going because we had hope,” she said.

In addition to her husband and son, three other people died aboard Titan: Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate, 61, British businessman Hamish Harding, 58, and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77, a former French Navy diver and veteran Titanic diver.

Shahzada Dawood, 48, (pictured with his wife Christine) was a UK-based board member of the Prince’s Trust charity. She said his enthusiasm “brought out the best in her.”

Suleman Dawood, 19, was the youngest victim of the Titan submarine tragedy. He is pictured with his mother Christine

Billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, who lost his life aboard the Titan, is pictured gazing out to sea before boarding the submersible

French naval veteran PH Nargeolet (left) and Stockton Rush (right), CEO of the OceanGate Expedition, also perished on Titan

Christine said those afloat were trying to stay hopeful, telling themselves, “There were so many things people on that sub could do to surface … they dropped the weights, then the approval would be slower, we were constantly on the.” Search.” on the surface. There was that hope.’

She and her daughter initially gave hope after initially not returning.

She said: “We all thought they were just going to show up so the shock was delayed by like ten hours or so.”

“When they were supposed to be back up, there was a time … when they were supposed to be back up on the surface and when that time was up, the real shock came, not the shock but the worry and the not so good.” Feelings started .’

Despite the bleak outlook as the hunt dragged on, she said her teenage daughter never lost hope of saving her father and older brother.

“My daughter didn’t lose hope until she called the Coast Guard and practically told us she had found debris.”

Alina’s mother said, “She’s such an incredible young woman, she’s so confident.”

“She believes in science, and she really believes, just like when you get on an airplane, that the science, the mechanics, the engineering is going to work.”

Christine, aged 96, said she tried “really hard” not to show her daughter that she had lost hope.

After it was announced on Thursday that debris from the submarine had been found, the family returned to St. John’s in Newfoundland, Canada, on Saturday.

On Sunday, they held a funeral prayer for Shahzada and Suleman, which Christine said had “helped.”

In a tribute to her son, she admitted that he was a “mama’s boy” but also “loved his father.”

When asked what the family’s last words were to each other, she told the BBC: “We just hugged and joked because Shahzada was so excited to go down, he was like a little kid.”

“He had this ability to generate excitement in childhood, they were both so excited.”

Christine and Shahzada met at university before she spoke English, she said.

She recalled that the history buff knew more about the history of her native Germany than she did and that he was obsessed with documentaries.

“He let us all watch David Attenborough and the kids loved it.”

“His enthusiasm brought out the best in me and that’s how I really learned to love the story.” “He was really able to inspire and motivate others with his knowledge.”

Her son, she said, is practical and intellectual, and wouldn’t go anywhere without his Rubik’s Cube — which he taught himself to solve in just 12 seconds.

“Suleman built a 10,000-piece Lego Titanic.” He was competing for a world record by trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube at the deepest point.

According to the US Coast Guard, OceanGate’s Titan submarine submerged about 400 miles southeast of St. John’s, Newfoundland as of 8 a.m. Sunday, June 18. It lost contact at 9.45am but was not reported to the Coast Guard until 5.40pm

Though his request was denied, they still planned to film the attempt, with Suleman saying, “I’m going to solve the Rubik’s Cube 12,000 feet under the sea on the Titanic.”

Ms. Dawood said she and her daughter swore to learn how to complete the Rubik’s Cube in Suleman’s honor and that she intended to continue her husband’s work.

She said: “He’s been involved in so many things, he’s helped so many people and I think Alina and I really want to carry on that legacy and give him that platform as his work goes on and that’s great for my daughter too important.”

“Alina and I said we’ll learn how to solve the Rubik’s Cube. It’s going to be a challenge for us because we’re really bad at it, but we’re going to learn.”

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As the mercenary commander, whose fortune hunters had fought alongside regular Russian troops in Ukraine, led his menacing march toward Moscow, President Vladimir Putin accused the mutineers of “treason.”

But after the Kremlin offered a desperate deal to stop an advance that got within 200 kilometers of the Russian capital, former Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin was not condemned as a traitor but hailed as a hero by a crowd of Russians.

“We’re keeping our fingers crossed for you!” exclaimed a woman in Rostov-on-Don, home of Russia’s Southern Command, which was taken unopposed by Prigozhin’s fighters on Saturday. The 62-year-old warlord, who runs Russia’s dark Wagner group, rolled down the window of his black SUV to greet well-wishers and take selfies.

“Sound Health!” said one man, verified videos show. “We support you!” said another.

In contrast, the top Russian officials whom Prigozhin wanted to publicly oust – including Putin’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff General Valery Gerasimov – were nowhere to be seen on Sunday.

Even the whereabouts of Putin, whose treason charges typically mean jail time or worse for his unfortunate victims, became the subject of speculation on Sunday. Some Russians (and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy) wondered loudly if he had fled the capital – prompting the Kremlin to take the unusual step of insisting he had not fled.

What just happened in Russia? The Wagner Crisis Explained.

In Russia, meanwhile, dogged military bloggers ridiculed the rushed “defense” of Moscow. And in western capitals, intelligence analysts wondered if Putin had refused to arrest Prigozhin because he feared his officials would disobey his orders.

The dizzying events confronted Russians on Sunday with a new reality in which the powerful authorities running the authoritarian state — and waging its war in Ukraine — are displaying not the omnipotence they have painstakingly cultivated, but vulnerability . Not inevitability, but uncertainty.

Not strength, but weakness.

“There is currently a very heated discussion about what that was and what the consequences should be,” said Sergei Markov, a political adviser with ties to the Kremlin. “What is certain is that everyone agrees that this should never have happened and that something has to change. …

“Everyone more or less agrees that we shouldn’t have private armies that are almost out of control anymore.”

After Saturday’s drama, a certain calm returned to Russia on Sunday – but an air of uncertainty remained. The Kremlin’s ceasefire with Prigozhin appeared to be holding, but an emergency decree on Moscow’s “anti-terrorist” decree remained in effect.

Prigozhin’s fighters, who appeared to have entered key installations unopposed before launching their lightning attack on Moscow, withdrew from Rostov-on-Don as stipulated in the Kremlin accords. But enthusiastic spectators cheered them on. Their withdrawal from another city, Voronezh, about 300 miles south of Moscow, was confirmed by regional officials via Telegram.

Residents cheered as Wagner Group mercenaries left the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District in the city of Rostov-on-Don on June 24. (Video: Portal)

The deal was negotiated through an unlikely intermediary: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, whose country has become almost a vassal state of Russia. Putin said this month he has sent tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, which lies between Russia and Ukraine.

The fact that Moscow was relying on Lukashenko, seen by some as Putin’s pale puppet, to defuse the crisis raised eyebrows and questions about long-standing assumptions about the extent of Putin’s authority.

There was no sign of blatant disloyalty to Putin among senior Russian officials. But during the 24-hour uprising, observers noted, reactions from some of them ranged from general calls for Russian unity to silence as they seemingly waited to see which side would win.

“He had to get help from Lukashenko!” exclaimed Liana Fix, European Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I mean, how embarrassing is that? And the statements of support for Putin [by his own officials] were not passionate. Many have remained silent or offered pro forma support.

“It’s time to ask: How could Putin allow this to happen?”

After a brief armed uprising, a mercenary convoy returns from Moscow

“What was missing was a sense of universal acceptance of Putin,” said Maria Snegovaya, a Russia analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Now they say he was great and strong. But I don’t think we’ve seen immediate support for Putin in that time.”

US spy services received information in mid-June that Prigozhin, who claims to have 25,000 fighters under his command, had planned an insurgency. He had engaged in a brutal tussle with Russian defense officials over what he believed to be mishandling of the Ukraine war, failure to support his mercenaries and corruption. But his setback still seemed to surprise the Russians.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Putin was “very scared” and was probably in hiding after the Wagner mercenary group uprising. (Video: Portal)

Prigozhin, who was close to Putin for a long time, became rich through government concessions. It was his relationship with the President and the care he took not to criticize him directly that enabled him to attack other senior officials.

Inside Russia, the event raised questions about a hallmark of Putin’s presidency: his practice of devolving spheres of influence to close allies and then allowing them to do as they please.

“The fact that he gave Prigozhin a private army is also part of that strategy,” said political adviser Markov. “Perhaps this strategy should be rejected.”

As the insurgency in Russia subsides, the US and its allies prepare for what comes next

Another weakness, Markov said, is the failure of Putin’s security services to adequately inform the president of Prigozhin’s intentions.

“They failed either because they did poor work,” he said, “or perhaps because they were not allowed to include their agents in the Wagner group.”

One possible outcome, Markov said, is a “restructuring” in Russia’s defense ministry and security services. Putin could still fire Shoigu – not because Prigozhin demanded it, he said, but because during the mutiny more troops supported the mercenary leader than the defense minister.

After the deal was announced, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that nothing had changed that could shake Putin’s confidence in Shoigu.

Inside Russia, Prigozhin’s mutiny shook the most ardent supporters of the Ukraine war, while seemingly cheering those whose dissent was brutally repressed. Many Russian military bloggers took the official line and condemned Prigozhin when he announced his march. They expressed dismay at the support the rebels were receiving.

But many also called for Shoigus to be dismissed. Some were frustrated that the defusing agreement allowed the mutineers to escape punishment.

One influential blogger, Mikhail Swinchuk, wrote that there are “undoubtedly” questions about Russia’s military leadership because the war has “gone in the wrong direction.” But he also criticized the deal. “The question is in the air: who will pay for the deaths of Russian soldiers during the ‘March for Justice’ and how?”

US spies learned in mid-June that Prigozhin was planning armed action in Russia

Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Vostok Battalion, a pro-Moscow fighter group in eastern Ukraine, wrote that he would “never understand those who shouted glory to Wagner supporters and rejoiced that someone had challenged the authorities.” Our country will never be the same again. The column of Wagnerians didn’t move across the asphalt – they moved through people’s hearts, dividing society in two.”

Igor Girkin, a former Russian commander in Ukraine convicted in The Hague of murder over the downing of Malaysia Airlines airliner MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, condemned both sides. For a long time he was a sharp critic of Shoigu and was also at odds with Prigozhin.

“Of course I understand – that I am a toxic product of bygone eras,” he wrote on Telegram on Sunday. He expressed his longing for a time when there was “no farce so hideous.”

Back then, he said, “scum, bandits, and traitors weren’t amnested, they were hanged, and indeed there were wild times.”

A military blogger with 385,000 Telegram followers poked fun at Russia’s “defense” of Moscow. Below a photo of security forces stacking some sandbags at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Moscow, he wrote: “Sandbags? Seriously? Folks, when preparing for battle, don’t be lazy and dig trenches. Any heavy machine gun can handle those sacks in seconds, let alone something heavier.”

In the West, leaders and analysts watched the crisis with a mixture of glee and astonishment. Some called for a realignment of Western thought based on Putin’s authority.

“The big unanswered question is: could Putin have ordered a deadly airstrike against Prigozhin,” said Bob Seely, a member of the UK Parliament and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee that has been investigating the Wagner group for the past two years. “Could Putin actually have killed Prigozhin along the way, or was it so bad for Putin that he couldn’t?”

Wagner has benefited from security treaties and blackmailing oil, diamond and gold mining industries in countries like Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic.

The notoriously brutal gang of mercenaries also acted as proxies in furthering the Kremlin’s political goals. His role expanded with Russia’s efforts to keep Ukraine under its control, when Wagner mercenaries trained and supported Russian separatists in Donbass after the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014.

The fierce – and mutual – animosity between Prigozhin and the Russian military leadership had been building for months before becoming public. In February, Prigozhin posted a highly personal diatribe against Shoigu and Gerasimov on social media.

Prigozhin, who had sent waves of convicts to Ukrainian lines in an attempt to win a victory in the war’s longest battle at Bakhmut, blamed the appalling slaughter, the lack of ammunition, and the undermining of the military by their corruption and greed on the military leadership.

The breaking point appears to have been reached on June 10, US intelligence officials said, when the Russian military leadership effectively ditched Prigozhin’s mercenary force. Although Wagner was not credited by name, the Department of Defense issued an executive order stating that all volunteer departments were required to sign contracts with the government. Prigozhin publicly condemned the decree.

US and Ukrainian intelligence and military officials saw these developments as a possibility that Prigozhin would move against the Russian military and possibly even spark a civil war.

Foreign Minister Antony Blinken said on Sunday that the brief rebellion showed “cracks in the facade” of Putin’s authoritarian leadership.

“It’s too early to say exactly where this will lead,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union. “I’m guessing this is a moving film and we haven’t seen the last act yet.”

Greg Miller contributed to this report.

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