Thread by @Halla_aho

1/9 Predicting is difficult. Especially predicting the future. I will make an attempt here and explain the assumptions on which the prediction is based.

2/9 Mr Putin is the kind of person who refuses to lose. His broader mentality and his current state of mind make it impossible for him to stop the war without a victory.

3/9 He very probably cannot achieve a military victory. His army is getting weaker morale-wise, material-wise and otherwise, whereas Ukraine is getting stronger all the time. He understands this and tries to win with mass and quantity and by attrition.

4/9 Russians are historically very good at dying en masse for their leaders. There are, however, cases where they have had enough, quit fighting a war they do not understand and turned against their masters. Think about 1917.

Is the army close to a breaking point? I do not know.

5/9 Will Mr Putin use a nuclear weapon? No. He loves (his own) life. He is very fond of himself. He knows using a nuke would have no military value for him but would have catastrophic consequences for his personal physical existence.

6/9 So, he will continue to throw conscripts, recruits and material into the grinder until a) he wins, b) he runs out of them, c) something happens to him.

7/9 He probably believes time is working for him, but I do not believe that is the case. The West, especially the US and the UK, has invested so much political capital in his defeat that his victory is no longer an option. They have more and better material than Mr Putin.

8/9 There are people in the Kremlin and the Russian military who understand that although Russia has already lost much, it can and will lose much more the longer the war continues. They also know that Mr Putin will not stop.

9/9 The only way out of this spiral to the bottom is to remove Mr Putin. I believe this is the most likely perspective. He will be sent to a "vacation", the Security Council will assume collective leadership. They will seek a cease-fire and some compromise.