It's looking increasingly likely that Prigozhin was approached by western intelligence, but that he reported this to Russian intelligence , who allowed him to play into it , letting him act out the disgruntled merc in order to string the west along.

It was revealed in the Jack Teixeira discord leaks that Prigozhin was feeding western intelligence information about key positions, and this supports this theory.

The result of all this is that Russia was able to move their troops into key areas without suspicion , as all eyes were on this so called "coup".

It also appears that Russia took the opportunity to conduct airstrikes in Syria under the cover of the smokescreen.

To me this looks like this "coup" was intentional on the part of Russia, it has given them tempo, and it has caused confusion in the west . All war is deception after all .