CHRIS PLEASANCE
Land grabs, hundreds of thousand of conscripts thrown on to the front lines, and a nuke for anyone who dares stand in his way: Vladimir Putin has spent the past week doubling down on his war in Ukraine.
But his bluster belies a simple fact: Russia is losing the war, and he knows it.
The despot is desperate. His army is in tatters, his battleplans shot, he's burning through his cash reserves at an unsustainable rate, and winter is looming. Meanwhile Ukraine's army continues to advance across the country, giving Kyiv a viable path to victory. Which begs the question: What happens if Russia is beaten?
According to Alp Sevimlisoy - millennium fellow at think-tank Atlantic Council, who spoke to MailOnline - that would mean Putin being deposed, Russia itself breaking apart, and NATO in a face-off with China over the spoils.
The West must begin preparing for that eventuality now, he adds, otherwise it will open the door for Beijing to muscle into regions such as Siberia, central Asia, Africa and South America where it already has toe-holds but will see opportunities as Russian power fades.
'We have to move into vacuums, seek to exert influence, and then we have to face up to the People's Republic of China. China is a globally-connected superpower, and we have to combat them effectively,' he said.
Ukrainian troops, having routed Russian troops to the east of Kharkiv last month, are continuing to push east - taking the city of Lyman at the weekend and pushing into Luhansk oblast in the last 24 hours
Ukraine is also making gains in the south, breaking through Russian defensive lines on the Dnipro River and pushing towards the city itself from the west, threatening Putin's forces with a major retreat
Putin has tried to stem the rot by annexing regions, conscripting hundreds of thousands of soldiers and threatening nuclear war - but an expert has told MailOnline he faces being deposed with NATO ended up in a face-off with China
Back in February, when Putin first launched his 'special military operation', such as scenario was barely thinkable.
The West may have been rooting hard for Ukraine, but few thought victory was possible - they were outnumbered, outgunned, and hemmed in from three sides by the full force of the Russian military, then estimated to be second only to the US. It may take days, or weeks, perhaps months, but few doubted Kyiv would eventually fall.
But then followed a series of spectacular miscalculations by Putin and his generals. Poor preparation and planning, corruption that had rotted Russia's military stockpiles from the inside out, and poor morale among the troops combined to hand Ukraine the initiative - which its commanders exploited ruthlessly.
Alp Sevimlisoy, a fellow with the Atlantic Council think tank, believes Putin would not survive defeat - and that Russia itself may begin to crumble
The lightning advance on Kyiv that Putin had banked on to topple the regime and hand him control of the country within a matter of days slowed, then stopped, and finally culminated in a 'goodwill gesture' - aka a full-scale retreat - as the Kremlin instead set its sights on 'liberating' the Donbas.
Despite the wide open lands of Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland being infinitely more-suited to Russian tactics - devastating artillery bombardments followed by slow troop and tank advances - problems persisted. Again, the advance slowed, and then largely stopped.
Ukraine then delivered a devastating one-two punch: An assault on Kherson in the south which sucked in Russian troops, before a hook east out of Kharkiv broke Russian lines, precipitated a full-scale rout, and handed thousands of square miles back to Kyiv's control in a matter of days.
Russia has been left reeling. Its military may not be flat on the canvas yet, but a heavy blow has been landed and its knees have begun to buckle. A few more, and a knockout is on the cards.
Speaking just after Ukraine launched its Kharkiv counter-attack, Mr Sevimlisoy told MailOnline: 'The Ukrainians have the momentum - they are winning. But this conflict won't just end with both sides going away and saying 'that's that', it will reverberate throughout Russia and the region.'
That would mean Russian power fading not just from the likes of South America and Africa - where it has previously sent mercenaries, handed out loans and built infrastructure - but also from ex-Soviet satellite states such as Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Armenia, he believes.
And Russia itself could succumb to in-fighting, with rebellious regions seeking to break away from Moscow's control as power-brokers within the Kremlin turn on one-another and vie for Putin's throne.
Though the prospect of a Putin-free Russia may once have seemed the stuff of fantasy, Mr Sevimlisoy believes there is almost no way for him to survive defeat in Ukraine.
'I can't see a future for Putin [if he loses the war],' Mr Sevimlisoy said. 'How do you go back to your people after this? After you've weaponized food and energy, how do you go back to the world stage after that?'
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