The Russian government’s internal security apparatus appears incompetent because it did not consider Wagner a threat, even though Prigozhin had been telegraphing his intentions for days (and probably planning it for months). The Russian military appears weak and overstretched, because it could not protect its operational HQ by force. Putin appears weak because he disappeared at the crucial moments, and large parts of Russia appeared sympathetic to Prigozhin even if they weren’t prepared to directly take part. The image of Putin being the supreme ruler in charge of everything looks pretty suspect at this point, and Russians know it because most of the events happened live on Russian state TV.
This is all “appears” “appears” “appears”. You are hung up on appearances. You seem to think that if they just appear a certain way to people then that will magically change the balances of factional power in the country.
Liberals have this bizarre idea about where power comes from. You all seem to believe that the population of the country has power, that if the government simply appears weak then it will magically result in the population doing… Something… And then the government will be overthrown and the war will be won!
Power is derived by those in hierarchical positions in a country to command various things within their positions to occur. And when enough people all align alongside one another and command things to happen together, if the related organisations follow those commands, they hold power.
I acknowledge in my other comments that this is embarrassing (which is quite a similar interpretation to you saying it hurts appearances). But the bottom line is how it affects power in the country. What factions exist and who those factions are aligning themselves behind.
This attempt did not result in anything like a weakening of the state or Putin. It consolidated all the sources of power in the country behind Putin, into statements of support and actions that back it up.
Putin has a long history of wriggling out of difficult situations, and he might still pull things out of the bag, but I think this is the beginning of the end for him.