Moscow | Vladimir Putin is known for his tight control over the news media in Russia. His onetime ally, Wagner military group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, is himself the owner of a conservative media outlet and a flamboyant showman on social media.

But it was an unlikely figure who emerged with a public relations victory in the wake of Prigozhin’s mutiny: the longtime dictator of Belarus, the neighbouring country that is firmly in Moscow’s orbit.