Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his top officials on Wednesday to draft proposals for a possible test of nuclear weapons, something Moscow has not done since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russian forces appear to be on the brink of finally seizing the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a symbolic victory that President Vladimir Putin has been pursuing for 21 months at an increasingly heavy cost.

Vladimir Putin has deliberately sidelined his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov amid claims that he torpedoed a summit with Donald Trump, according to a report. Lavrov was “deliberately absent” from a meeting of Russia’s security council on proposals to resume nuclear testing on Wednesday, a source told Russian outlet Kommersant.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday the world would have no future without a system of arms control, with the future of a nuclear weapons pact between Russia and the United States hanging in the balance.

In a twist of irony, the Russian regime is now labeling its own loyalists as 'foreign agents,' hinting at a deeper turmoil within Putin's inner circle.

Under Putin, however, loyalty and continuity are still prized. Last year, for instance, the Kremlin announced the replacement of Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s long-serving minister of defense. But instead of being fired outright for a lack of battlefield success, Shoigu was moved sideways to a post as the secretary of Russia’s Security Council.