Analysis by CNN: Russia's war in Ukraine at a high point

At one point this week, the Kremlin will likely declare that <x0rem” referenda in the four partially occupied areas in Ukraine have given the go-ahead for their quick assimilation to what Russia calls Russian territory.

The referenda are illegal under international law and Ukraine, the United States and other NATO countries have already made it clear that this initiative has no legal basis and, as such, will be targeted by sanctions.

However, this will happen, and Russia will probably use this moment to meet the central threat behind this fraud, declared openly by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during the weekend: that Moscow has the right to “totally protected” areas that have officially become its territory.

Moscow's threat is clearly nuclear. Putin has shown his war-loved rhetoric- warning last week that Russia will use weapons systems to be available if necessary -- in response to NATO's non-active nuclear threats.

But his officials have been clear: they want the use of nuclear weapons to be considered a real possibility, and as Putin said, “this is not bluff”.

This has prompted a thrilling change of message in Washington.

For months, Western officials rejected any suggestion that the nuclear conflict has ever been in consideration. Now, American President Joe Biden, and officials from his cabinet are obliged to publicly send messages of prevention and willingness to secure their aletas and almost everyone else on planet Earth.

It's really inappropriate to live at a time when the U.S. government felt it must publicly warn a Russian in wartime -- a Russia that is losing deep and sudden to a neighbor they had always thought could be subjected to, according to the wish that using nuclear weapons is a bad idea. The principles of common destruction, which brought a dark calm to the Cold War, seem to be gone.

We're facing a Russia that wants to present a glimpse of a crazy man who's willing to lose everything- if he faces defeat in this war.

Putin is now weaker

This is a two-way suspect for Putin, who is not available behind or a soft way out.

Partial mobilization of Russian civilians has been so terrible that not even anyone who has been looking at the recruiting in Russia over the decades may have waited. Wrong people are being recruited as the rich are leaving and the poor outnumber everyone else.

rusted rifles, busloaded with drunk recruits and yet no answers to the key question -- how will they be supplied and how will these tens of thousands of untrained and perhaps unwilling soldiers on the front line, if Moscow could no longer supply its regular army over the past six months?

And, the crisis in Putin's Russia should not expect the newly mobilized to return to coffins. The chaos of mobilization has already made that Kremlin propaganda giants like Margarita Simonian, director of state-controlled television, RT, act like an agony aunt in “itter” for Russian fathers whose sons and spouses were wrongly sent to the front line.

They argue local officials are guilty of recruiting errors, but under all of this, it is the war and its terrible plight, which have brought Russia here. Accepting Moscow's elite for the mobilization disaster resounds a critical smell for the chef himself and that's rare.

All of this leaves Putin much weaker than when he was just losing the war. As an increase in the number of Armenians, he now faces internal discontent that is perhaps unprecedented. His position depends on his power, and now he lacks it, almost entirely. Forced mobilization of people in age and young people without will does not seem to change the calculations on the battlefield, where Ukrainian morality is in heaven and their weapons are slowly improving.

Do not return to Putin's narrow circle for change. All of them are covered with the same blood of this war, and behind the slow drum of oppression that has turned Russia into a diplomatic autocracy over the last 22 years. Putin does not have a clear descendant; do not expect anyone who eventually replaces it to change course and seek peace and economic recovery. Any successor may try to prove his courage by an exercise even more corrupt than Ukraine's initial invasion.

What?

So we're stuck with a loser Putin who can't afford to lose. Without much conventional force left, he can turn to other tools to change this terrible position.

Strategic planes can drop bombs in some parts of Ukraine, even though in many of the villages and cities it seems that this has already happened. It can also turn to chemical and biological weapons, even though these would be very close to its border for comfort, and this would spur a harsh international reaction.

And then comes the nuclear option -- an option that was previously unthinkable that by going crazy to pledge to print it on paper. But even this comes with risks for Putin, beyond possible NATO revenge. An army that cannot fly enough planes or that cannot fill enough tanks is in trouble. This army may be concerned that it cannot carry out an exact, limited and effective nuclear tactical attack properly.

Putin himself may worry that his somewhat debauched capture of power cannot hold a chain of command that is strong enough to actually carry out the order to launch a nuclear weapon. This may even be the moment when the best angels in Russian nature are highlighted. In the five years I have lived there, I have met a bright, warm, bright people, largely damaged by centuries of ill - government.

In the coming days, however, it will be tempting to reject Moscow's broad claims of sovereignty and war threat as the grahma of the death of an empire that forgot to control the engine before it started driving in the storm. This is a moment “benefit or lose” for Putin and he doesn't see a future in which he loses.

It says: Nick Patton Walch, CNN/Ch: Periscope