President Vladimir V. Putin is presenting himself as a cool-headed arbiter towering above the tumult as disarray in the top ranks of the Russian military spills into public view, portraying the failed Wagner mutiny last month that plunged the country into crisis as an internal scuffle he successfully resolved.

In an interview published late on Thursday, Putin divulged new details about a three-hour meeting in the Kremlin with members of the Wagner mercenary group and its boss, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, at the end of June, just days after the uprising. The revelation of the meeting by the Kremlin this week was a surprise after Putin had earlier denounced the leaders of the rebellion as traitors.

Depicting himself as a mediator, Putin said that he had praised regular Wagner fighters for their military feats on the front lines, but also that he had “regretted that they had appeared dragged” into the mutiny. “I outlined the possible paths for their future military service, including in combat,” Putin said, according to Kommersant, a Russian business daily.

The interview — conducted with journalists from state television and Kommersant who were waiting for him at an event — came amid deepening mystery over the state of Russia’s military as it faces attempts by Ukrainian forces to take back territory it has seized. Putin has been aiming to present an image of control even as the mutiny raised questions about his hold on power and the stability of the system he built.

Since the mutiny, several senior officers have been detained or pushed out of their posts, according to a person close to the Russian military, and speculation has swirled about the fate of General Sergei Surovikin, a former chief of forces in Ukraine, who has not been seen publicly since the rebellion. Another top commander in Ukraine was killed in a Ukrainian airstrike this week in Berdiansk.