The rest of the planet really didn’t see this coming on Friday. It was borderline late 1990s military-espionage-themed Hollywood action movie stuff.
There’s likely a couple of intelligence orgs that aren’t happy they ended up flat-footed, and didn’t see this coming when it did.
I don’t think he was cornered at all, just impatient. He’s 70 years old and the conflict had frozen for 8 years. Barely anyone even cared in western europe/US. That’s perfect for Russia! But can he really live for much longer? He may not think he has many more years to dedicate to the task.
Now the invasion has completely backfired and he is in a political corner he backed himself into. If your theory of Russian machismo is correct, he can’t back down from trying to beat up a smaller weaker country - and he simply can’t beat them.
So he has to lose in Ukraine, beat the first coup, and consolidate power simultaneously. I believe Putin will be just like Erdogan who used the 2016 “coup” to eliminate political enemies.
People died in Turkey in 2016, there was damage- but Erdogan emerged stronger and won subsequent elections. Maybe there will be Russian proscription lists and purges now.
This is not how it was seen by Russian conservatives like Putin. The threat of NATO in Ukraine was not eliminated by those actions.
Now everyone realizes that they are a weak successor state who has completely squandered their military inheritance from the USSR. Russian conservatives may not realize it, which is fine, as they are willing to rapidly expend away their soviet inventory. Their modern weak economy can’t afford to rearm. They have eliminated themselves from the great game.
Not only did they fail to stop NATO - it expanded and added 1,340 km of direct border contact.
That he was a risk of starting a coup was obvious to any but the most blinded observer of Russia.