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The head of foreign policy in the European Union, Josep Borrell, says that the attempted coup over the weekend by the Wagner group shows the fragmentation of Russian military power.
"The political system is showing weakness and military power is disintegrating," he told reporters ahead of the EU Foreign Ministers' meeting.
"The sample that Putin created with Wagner is now biting him. The sample is being returned to the creator," Borell said of Wagner's boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The senior European official added that "it is not a good thing" to see a nuclear power like Russia entering a phase of political instability.
Wagner's boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, ended the rebellion against the regime after a deal brokered by the Belarusian leader. That eased immediate concerns of a major conflict within Russia, but signaled that the power of Russian President Vladimir Putin is waning.
Images of tanks on the streets of Russian cities brought to mind the failed 1991 coup by communist hardliners, raising concerns about the safety of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, former US intelligence officials say.
"The intelligence community is going to be super focused on the [Russian] nuclear stockpile," says Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA officer who oversaw the agency's covert operations in Europe and Eurasia.
"You want to know who's in control of the nuclear weapons because you're worried that terrorists or bad guys like [Chechen leader Ramzan] Kadyrov might come next," says Daniel Hoffman, a former senior CIA officer. -s, who served as the agency's station chief in Moscow.
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