"How does Putin extract himself from this nightmare of his own making?"

That's the headline at the London Times, asking precisely the question I had. I could not think of any answer. It seems there's nothing Putin can do but move forward into his calamity. Even if he wants out, there's no way out.

This piece is by Mark Galeotti, an honorary professor at University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies and the author of "The Weaponisation of Everything." 

How does he get out of this mess? He probably cannot: there are several paths he could take, but they all lead to the same dead end....

Many are opportunists who would throw Putin under a metro train if they felt it was in their interests and was safe to do, but so long as he controls the Federal Security Service (FSB), any such conspiracy would be nipped in the bud — and everyone knows that. Perhaps the only institution that could oust Putin would be the army.... Any move by the military would be a bloody and contested affair. There are no indications to suggest that Putin is vulnerable....

Putin’s assumption is presumably that once he has Ukraine in his grasp he will be able to negotiate a new relationship with the West from a position of strength. Yet according to a foreign policy specialist working for a Russian think tank, “no one in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the expert community shares that belief”....

The passion and venom in Putin’s recent public statements on Ukraine demonstrate that this is a personal crusade, not a mere geopolitical gambit.... This war has never been about territory, though, but Russia’s status as a great power — and Putin’s status as a great ruler. To him, a great power takes what it feels it deserves, it does not haggle for it. So Putin cannot back down....

Most Russians will, as in the Brezhnev era, retreat into sullen disaffection, and those who can, will leave. For the Kremlin, this will be good enough: authoritarian regimes tend to rely on fearful apathy more than genuine enthusiasm....

Just as Russian soldiers are proving often unwilling to fight Ukrainians, the security forces may tire of being stormtroopers of the Kremlin. It may sound trivial, but I remember a riot policeman in the final days of the Soviet Union saying he was thinking of handing in his badge because “none of the girls want to date an Omon”....