Russian government troops have withdrawn from the streets of Moscow but a short-lived revolt by rebel mercenaries has left uncertainty about the strength of President Vladimir Putin amid a fierce counteroffensive in Ukraine.

The aborted march on the capital by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner troops, some of the most effective fighters in Ukraine, also left their fate unclear.

Under the terms of the agreement that ended the crisis, Mr Prigozhin will go into exile in Belarus but will not face prosecution.

Mr Prigozhin was last seen leaving Rostov-on-Don late on Saturday in a black four-wheel-drive after the Kremlin said a deal had been brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in which Mr Prigozhin had agreed to go to Belarus and end his rebellion.

Mr Prigozhin himself has not confirmed the deal, and neither he nor Mr Putin have been heard from since Saturday night (local time).

State news agency Tass said Mr Lukashenko spoke by Mr Putin by phone on Sunday, but did not reveal any further details.

Also on Sunday, Belarusian officials told CNN they had no details on what Mr Prigozhin’s status would be in their country and could not confirm whether he had already arrived there.

Another who has not been sighted in days is Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, a key Putin ally and target of Mr Prigozhin’s criticism.

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Monday that Mr Shoigu had visited Russian troops involved in the military operation in Ukraine.

Mr Shoigu had listened to a report by commander of the western military district, Colonel General Yevgeny Nikiforov, “on the current situation, the nature of enemy actions and the performance of combat tasks by the Russian Armed Forces”, the ministry said.

It gave no further details about when or where the visit was.

Valery Gerasimov, appointed in January by Mr Putin to lead the Russian army, has also been silent.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the weekend’s events as “extraordinary”, recalling that 16 months ago Mr Putin appeared poised to seize the capital of Ukraine and now has had to defend Moscow from forces led by his onetime protege.

“We see cracks emerging. Where they go, if anywhere, when they get there, [it’s] very hard to say. I don’t want to speculate. I don’t think we’ve seen the final act,” he said.

“This has been a devastating strategic failure for Putin across virtually every front – economic, military, geopolitical standing.”

Mr Blinken said the fallout was mostly an internal matter, and the latest events were “just an added chapter to a very, very bad book that Putin has written for Russia”.

“The fact that you have from within someone directly questioning Putin’s authority, directly questioning the premises upon which he launched this aggression against Ukraine,” he said.

“That, in and of itself, is something very, very powerful. It adds cracks. Where those go, when they get there, too soon to say, but it clearly raises new questions that Putin has to deal with,” he said.

The 24-hour rebellion resulted in some of the most effective forces fighting for Russia being pulled from the battlefield: Mr Prigozhin’s Wagner troops, who scored the Kremlin’s only land victory in months, in Bakhmut, and Chechen soldiers sent to stop them on the approach to Moscow.

The Wagner forces’ largely unopposed, rapid advance also exposed vulnerabilities in Russia’s security and military forces, with reports of several helicopters and a military communications plane being downed.

A possible motivation for Mr Prigozhin’s rebellion was the Defence Ministry’s demand, which Mr Putin backed, that private companies sign contracts with it by July 1. Mr Prigozhin had refused,

Ukrainians hoped the Russian infighting could create opportunities for their army, which is in the early stages of a counteroffensive to take back territory seized by Russian forces.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky said he told US President Joe Biden in a phone call on Sunday that the aborted rebellion in Russia had “exposed the weakness of Putin’s regime”.

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In their lightning advance, Mr Prigozhin’s forces took control of two military hubs in southern Russia and got within 200 kilometres from Moscow before retreating.

People in Rostov-on-Don cheered Wagner troops on Saturday, a scene that played into Mr Putin’s fear of a popular uprising.

Yet the rebellion fizzled quickly, in part because Mr Prigozhin did not have the backing he expected from Russian security services.

“Clearly, Prigozhin lost his nerve,” retired US General David Petraeus, a former CIA director, said on CNN’s State of the Union.

“This rebellion, although it had some applause along the way, didn’t appear to be generating the kind of support that he had hoped it would.”

Rostov appeared calm Sunday morning, with only tank tracks on the roads as a reminder of the Wagner fighters.

By Sunday afternoon, troops had withdrawn from Moscow’s outskirst and traffic had returned to normal, although Red Square remained closed to visitors. On highways leading to Moscow, crews repaired roads ripped up just hours earlier in panic.

Anchors on state-controlled television stations cast the deal ending the crisis as a show of Mr Putin’s wisdom and aired footage of Wagner troops retreating.

But the revolt and the deal that ended it severely dented Mr Putin’s reputation as a leader willing to ruthlessly punish anyone who challenges his authority.

-with AAP