A year ago, Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin challenged the Kremlin with a mutiny

By The Associated Press

On a lazy summer weekend a year ago, Russia was jolted by the stunning news of an armed uprising. The swaggering chief of a Kremlin-sponsored mercenary army seized a military headquarters in the south and began marching toward Moscow to oust the Defense Ministry’s leaders, accusing them of starving his force of ammunition in Ukraine. And even though Yevgeny Prigozhin and his soldiers-for-hire called off their rebellion hours later, it still dealt a blow to President Vladimir Putin, the most serious challenge to his rule in nearly a quarter-century in power. Prigozhin’s motives are still hotly debated, and his death in a suspicious crash exactly two months after the rebellion remains mired in mystery.