However, I also think that a nuclear exchange is still very unlikely. Putin is also suggesting talks on the Belarus/Ukraine border.
I'm hoping for/dreading one of those cold war fudges we had back in the bad old days. Some horse trading, perhaps a partition of the Ukraine with attendant population sorting and so on. Negotiations about force reductions and all of that.
It took the US/Alliance army of 180 000 plus air cover a month to render the conscript Iraq army non-operational and to gain some tenuous control of Iraq (or at least the major cities) in 2003. Putin must have had a time-scale of weeks in mind for this operation.
I shall be disconnecting from wall to wall news coverage next week as I do have anxiety issues sometimes. At the end of the day none of us here can do much.
The word is that the Russians will suggest that they unconditionally surrender or Kyiv will get the 'Grozny' treatment. I'm pretty sure of the outcome there, but of course anything could happen.