Putin’s Endgame:Coup or Nuclear Attack?

Since their August 2024 offensive, Ukrainian troops executed a successful incursion into the Sudzhansky District in the Kursk Oblast, the last region from which Russia’s pipelines pump gas into Europe. Russia bet it could appease Europe by maintaining gas delivery and that Kyiv would not attack its Western allies’ interests. Instead, the offensive moved the conflict onto Russian soil, endangering the Russian population that had been feeling insulated from the “Russian special operation in Ukraine.” Now, Russians are facing the same hardships they have been causing Ukrainians since February 2022, and they are similarly threatened by death and the destruction of cities and their infrastructure.