The standoff between Moscow and its powerful mercenary group Wagner ended without bloodshed following an amnesty deal late Saturday.
The leader of the group Yevgeny Prigozhin has agreed to go into exile in Belarus as part of the deal, which also ended the immediate threat that Yevgeny Prigozhin's private army could storm Moscow.
Security measures imposed under an "anti-terrorism operation" were still in place in Moscow on Sunday, and Prigozhin's exact whereabouts were unclear, but his troops had left a military headquarters they had seized in southern Russia.
The long-standing feud between Prighozin and military top brass over the conduct of the Russian operation in Ukraine boiled over on Saturday when Wagner forces seized the base in Rostov-on-Don and embarked on a long advance toward Moscow.
Vladimir Putin denounced the action as treason and vowed to punish the perpetrators, accusing them of pushing Russia to the brink of civil war – only to then accept a rapidly cobbled-together agreement to avert Russia's most serious security crisis in decades.
Within hours of Prigozhin's surprise announcement that his forces would return to base to avoid "spilling Russian blood," the Kremlin announced that Putin's former ally would leave for Belarus and that Russia would not prosecute him nor Wagner's troops.
By early Sunday, Wagner had pulled out of Rostov-on-Don, the regional governor said, but before they left dozens of residents were reportedly cheering and chanting "Wagner! Wagner!" outside the military headquarters they had captured.
Ukraine reveled in the chaos, stepping up its own counteroffensive against Russian forces in the country and mocking Moscow's apparent humiliation.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said he had negotiated the truce with Prigozhin. Moscow thanked him, but observers noted that Lukashenko's intervention was an embarrassment.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later said the criminal case against Prigozhin will be dropped and he would go to Belarus, while members of Wagner who had taken part in what authorities dubbed an "armed rebellion" would not be prosecuted.
In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's senior aide Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted: "Prigozhin humiliated Putin/the state and showed that there is no longer a monopoly on violence."
While Russia claimed the rebellion had no impact on its Ukraine campaign, Kyiv said the unrest offered a "window of opportunity" as the nation pressed its long-awaited counteroffensive.
And experts said the truce would probably not be the end of the story of Prighozin's feud with Moscow, with Putin now being obliged to take measures to restore his authority.
In addition to providing some of the most successful shock troops fighting in Ukraine, Prigozhin's outfit conducts several mercenary operations in the Middle East and West Africa.
These missions are seen to have the Kremlin's backing and amount to Russian influence operations to curry favor with African governments and win access to mineral resources.
Independent political analyst Konstantin Kalachev told AFP: "The crisis of institutions and trust was not obvious to many in Russia and the West yesterday. Today, it is clear."
"Yesterday's call for unity made by representatives of the elites only confirmed this. Behind these is a crisis of institutions and fears for themselves," he said.
He noted that Russian leaders would be concerned by the sight of civilian onlookers applauding Wagner units in Rostov.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, Lukashenko's direct role in negotiating the truce would be humiliating to the Russian leadership.
"The Kremlin now faces a deeply unstable equilibrium," it said.
"The Lukashenko-negotiated deal is a short-term fix, not a long-term solution, and Prigozhin's rebellion exposed severe weaknesses in the Kremlin and Russian MoD."
Security was tightened in the Moscow city center, with armed men in flak jackets guarding the parliament building and Red Square closed off to the public.
"I don't know how to react. In any case, it's very sad this is happening," 35-year-old Yelena told AFP, declining to give her last name.
On Saturday as the Wagner force headed north towards Putin on a major highway, Putin accused Prigozhin of a "stab in the back" that posed a threat to Russia's very survival.
"Any internal turmoil is a deadly threat to our statehood and to us as a nation ... Extravagant ambitions and personal interests led to treason," Putin said, referring to Prigozhin, who began building his power base as a catering contractor.
While Prigozhin's outfit fought at the forefront of Russia's offensive in Ukraine, he repeatedly blamed Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, for under-supplying his units.
