CIA's Burns: armed mutiny shows damage Putin has done to Russia

A view of debris of a downed Russian military plane, purportedly shot down by Wagner troops, in a field near Bugaevka, Voronezh Region, Russia, June 24, 2023, in this screengrab from social media video obtained by REUTERS

MOSCOW (Reuters) -U.S. CIA Director William Burns said on Saturday that the armed mutiny by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was a challenge to the Russian state that had shown the corrosive effect of President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.

Putin this week thanked the army and security forces for averting what he said could have turned into a civil war, and has compared the mutiny to the chaos that plunged Russia into two revolutions in 1917.