I was listening to a Russia expert on the radio this week. He was explaining that he was well liked among the oligarchs, oligarchs who are currently pissed at Putin cause they're being tethered by this war, they've lost their holiday homes abroad, they can't spend the summer in Monaco on their yachts, their businesses can't even operate really, they're the ones who can actually influence anything there, so killing Prigozhin outright would be a slap in the face to those people.
He had to put doubt in there that it wasn't an execution to prevent a full revolt, but even so the revolt might happen.