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Good morning. Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin and his troops have withdrawn from southern Russia after reaching a deal with Moscow to end his armed uprising following the biggest crisis of Vladimir Putin’s presidency.

Prigozhin himself maintained a rare silence after calling an end to his insurrection on Saturday evening, though the Kremlin said he would travel to Belarus after the country’s leader, Alexander Lukashenko, brokered the agreement to end the uprising.

The Wagner Group leader had left the city of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday evening, according to video footage released by Russian state news agency RIA, which showed crowds cheering Prigozhin. 

The mutiny and Putin’s extraordinary response on Saturday, when he likened the threat to the revolution of 1917, have raised serious doubts about the stability of his regime.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking by phone on Sunday with US president Joe Biden who was at his Camp David retreat, said: “Yesterday’s events exposed the weakness of Putin’s regime.”

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Sunday that the uprising had showed “real cracks” in Putin’s authority. “This raises profound questions . . . We do know that Putin has a lot more to answer for in the weeks and months ahead,” Blinken said.

Blinken called the crisis an “unfolding story”, adding: “I think we are in the midst of a moving picture. We haven’t seen the last act.”

What will Prigozhin’s aborted rebellion mean for Putin’s regime and the war in Ukraine? Email me at benjamin.wilhelm@ft.com.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• China heatwave: Northern China is experiencing sweltering heat. In Beijing, temperatures topped 40 degrees centigrade for a record third consecutive day on Saturday. (Reuters)

• Auto industry: Germany’s highest civil court decides whether Volkswagen, Audi and Mercedes-Benz must compensate buyers of vehicles whose emission cleaning system works only at certain temperatures.

• Education: QS World University Rankings will be published.

Five more top stories

1. Gerson Lehrman Group has become the latest due diligence firm to cut jobs in China as Beijing intensifies scrutiny of the sector on national security grounds. The US-based expert network consulting company began axing China staff last month, marking a reversal in GLG’s plans to expand in the country.

2. PwC has appointed a senior partner from its global network to lead its scandal-hit Australian operation, deepening its control over the local company as it seeks to rebuild its reputation. Kevin Burrowes, a PwC veteran and head of the PwC Network’s global clients and industries business, will move from Singapore to Australia to take over the local partnership. Here are more details on the leadership change at PwC Australia.

3. Greece’s Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his centre-right party New Democracy won by a landslide in elections on Sunday. With more than half of the votes counted, New Democracy party won 40.5 per cent of the vote, enough for him to govern without a coalition partner. Read more about Mitsotakis’ big win and his agenda for his second term in office.

4. Turkey has loosened bank regulations designed to push consumers and businesses to reduce dollar holdings, in the latest sign of how President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s new economic team is unwinding some of his unorthodox policies. The central bank’s move came just days after policymakers nearly doubled the benchmark interest rate to 15 per cent as part of a plan to return to “rational” economic policies.

5. TikTok is turning to south-east Asia to drive new growth amid political pushback and attempts to ban TikTok in the US. Chief executive Shou Zi Chew announced at an event in Jakarta this month that TikTok would “invest billions” in south-east Asia, including $10bn in Indonesia over the next five years. But even in Asia, ByteDance is facing sharpening scrutiny. Read the full story.

The Big Read

As Italian fashion houses Prada, Armani and Dolce & Gabbana face succession dilemmas, investors and insiders question whether Italy’s foremost brands will be as popular once their visionary founders are gone. But the questions of succession facing these firms also have industry-wide implications. Now, the biggest threat to Italian high fashion is that the remaining jewels could be bagged by French giants such as Kering and LVMH.

We’re also reading . . .

• US commercial real estate: A long-awaited reckoning is under way in the US commercial property industry, as building loans come due at a time of scarcer credit.

• Janan Ganesh: Could you pass a test on Asia? Ignorance of the continent is the biggest hole in western education.

• SoftBank: CEO Masayoshi Son’s new incarnation as a would-be architect of humanity’s future may be less healthy for Japan than his early monetary motivations, writes Leo Lewis.

Chart of the day

Oil and gas majors are stepping up efforts to diversify into lithium, and companies are exploring whether their skills could be deployed to process the metal from unconventional brine resources. However, brine’s future contribution — and the involvement of the oil majors — hinges on a breakthrough in direct lithium extraction, a technology unproven at scale.

Take a break from the news

. . . and meet the Indian wrestlers taking on Narendra Modi’s establishment. A group of star athletes has launched their own #MeToo movement, threatening to upset the prime minister’s carefully crafted narrative of growth and progress.

Additional contributions by Tee Zhuo and Gordon Smith