I will repeat that Putin does not care at all what happens to Russia or Russians and he never has. He thinks about staying in power today and tomorrow. That's it. You can never say a dictator has miscalculated as long as he's still the dictator.
Now that Putin's original plan to take Kyiv quickly, assuming the UKR military would collapse & Zelensky would flee, has failed, he will lift all restrictions on destruction in the capital in order to take it all costs.
Obviously they weren't avoiding civilian casualties before, but weren't seeking them. Now no more precision, just destruction and terror. Putin doesn't care "how it looks" to the world or to Ukrainians or to Russians if they cannot make him pay.
What is the difference to Putin if there are a 1000 dead or 10,000 or 100,000? Is he still in power? Is he still rich? As I've often said, the ability to act this way, purely selfishly, is a superpower of autocrats. Normal people cannot emulate it.
Putin will bomb & shell, attack key infrastructure to destroy the capacity of the city to resist. He doesn't want a long siege. His money will dry up from sanctions and the West's promised weapons are still far away. But Russian tanks are there now.
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.