The first week of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion into Ukraine did not go as planned, with the Russian military admitting the deaths of 500 soldiers (Ukrainian estimates are higher) and western sanctions dealing a body blow to the Russian economy that will only worsen in the coming weeks.

Despite this, the Russian president appears to be more committed to his effort to conquer Ukraine, drawn in by the growing stakes of his most ambitious and deadly bet in 22 years in power, according to the report. "Putin is in the corner," the Moscow Carnegie Centre's Andrei Kolesnikov remarked. "It's him vs the entire world." "I think it's going to get worse," said Kadri Liik, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. 

"For Putin, the incentive is to escalate. He has gone all in. I cannot see him modifying his war because that would be a loss in his eyes."  Any chance to come to an agreement with western powers had probably passed, the Guardian quoted Liik as saying. "And I think it'll be pretty full-blown dictatorship at home. You can see it coming." Western officials believe the risks are high for the Russian leader. 

While it was once believed that Putin would be in power for the next decade, his appetite for risk has aroused concerns about whether he may incite a public backlash or a power struggle among the elites sooner rather than later, especially if Russia's economy enters recession. For the time being, all public data indicates that Putin has popular support for the conflict, which has seen the key cities of Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Mariupol shelled. Several Russian pollsters have expressed fear that the high levels of support for the war might empower the Kremlin and prolong the fight, according to the article.

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