What Russians noticed on TV: The traitor and the ‘indisputable hero.’

Looking again on a mercenary march that reached inside 125 miles of Moscow, even probably the most well-known faces of Russian state media needed to concede it was a “difficult” week.

But the TV host, Dmitry Kiselyov, spun the week’s dramatic occasions — a mutiny by Wagner mercenary forces, two offended speeches by Russia’s in any other case absent president, and the sudden exile of Wagner’s chief — into causes for celebration, regardless of it being probably the most vital problem to President Vladimir V. Putin’s rule in years.

“On the one hand, it was a clearly a betrayal,” Mr. Kiselyov stated in early July on “News of the Week,” Russia’s flagship political program on state TV. “On the other hand, it showed the unity of the people and all levels of power around the president of Russia.”

Mr. Putin, he stated, had truly saved the day.

The Kremlin itself put Mr. Putin on show in a single look after one other, surrounding him with triumphant imagery this week though he remained out of sight for a lot of the mutiny, and had allowed rivalries to fester publicly for months between Mr. Prigozhin and Russia’s army leaders.

Russian state media and sympathetic bloggers had been fast to make use of Mr. Putin’s rush of appearances to point out him as a person of the individuals, with some even noting how uncommon it was for the president to seem near members of the general public. (For over three years, the Kremlin has enforced a “clean zone” across the president, forcing individuals to quarantine earlier than coming close to him, and he has stored even world leaders at a distance in some conferences.)

But after Mr. Putin traveled to Dagestan to tout tourism alternatives within the Caucasus, Mr. Kiselyov stated that the president was “visibly drawn to the people” in a “highly emotional” second. A state TV reporter, Pavel Zarubin, supplied shaky cellphone footage and glowing commentary.

The Kremlin later introduced that Mr. Putin had truly met Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the chief of the Wagner mercenaries, simply days after the mutiny. But whereas state media had portrayed the president as a beloved hero, Mr. Prigozhin was forged as a traitor whose ego and greed had led him to problem the army, the state and the president himself.

Mr. Kiselyov stated that Mr. Prigozhin “went crazy” for cash, elevating hypothesis that the mercenary chief was going to lose profitable Defense Ministry contracts for his different enterprise: meals companies. And the TV host in contrast him to a number of different rebels of Russian historical past — solely mentioning those who resulted in grim failures.

Sarah Kerr contributed manufacturing.