The only thing that makes sense to me about this outcome is that the Wagner commander realized that his push to Moscow was doomed (for reasons) and the only non

The only thing that makes sense to me about this outcome is that the Wagner commander realized that his push to Moscow was doomed (for reasons) and the only non-suicidal approach was to negotiate some kind of deal that preserves his control of his militia, a bunch of cash and great PR. At least, this approach gives a non-zero chance of survival. Looking from the outside, I suspect we overestimated his chances of success because of how surprising the action was and quite frankly, we wanted that to be true. If this were true, this deal would make no sense at all.