'It's time to 'think the unthinkable' about Putin's Ukraine war'
9News European Correspondent Brett McLeod is based in London.
ANALYSIS: Increasingly isolated from the rest of the world. Cut off from accessing most material needs outside its borders. A future as a nation that is increasingly bleak and unknowable.
In his "look what you made me do" excuses for invasion, Vladimir Putin proclaimed the indivisibility of Russia and Ukraine.
LIVE UPDATES: Kremlin claims it has seized southern city
A view of the central square following shelling of the City Hall building in Kharkiv, Ukraine. AP Photo/Pavel Dorogoy
His actions have certainly left both nations with one thing in common: they are both much worse off than a week ago.
The war has created two possibilities that beforehand would have been almost unthinkable.
One is a nuclear attack. The other is Putin being forced from power.
"The trouble with what is unthinkable is that at times it must be thought about," historian John Lukacs wrote.
On the nuclear attack option, The Institute for the Study of War said Putin's rattling of his biggest, baddest sabre was indeed designed "to alarm Western audiences with the risk of nuclear war".
Mission accomplished.
But the second reason has been overlooked.
"To signal to the United States and other nuclear powers that Putin was not carrying out a dramatic nuclear escalation" - emphasis mine.
Russia has four levels of nuclear readiness.
The alert level was raised from the lowest to the next highest - not, as has been reported, the highest.
READ MORE: Russia attacks intensify as most of world condemns invasion
Ukrainian emergency service personnel carry a body of a victim following shelling that hit the City Hall building in Kharkiv. AP Photo/Pavel Dorogoy
So while that's a long way from comforting, given Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, there is within Putin's threat some degree of nuance - even if nuance and nuclear war don't at first seem to go hand in hand.
To the other unthinkable.
Putin has total control of his government.
The old politburo system that could exercise some influence - and even turf out leaders - was scrapped along with the Soviet Union.
But as the sanctions start to bite the oligarchs and the military apparatchiks may start to look at their leader with a little more side-eye.
Yes, many will still be able to avoid total financial penalty by keeping their holdings in cryptocurrency.
But for some key players those lovely mansions in London, the mega-yachts on the Algarve, the Renaissance masterpieces in their New York apartments - for the foreseeable future they'll only be reachable by memory.
READ MORE: Boris Johnson: Russia's actions in Ukraine qualify as war crime
A Russian armoured personnel carrier burns amid damaged and abandoned light utility vehicles after fighting in Kharkiv. AP Photo/Marienko Andrew
It's fine to be allied with North Korea but would you want to live in your own hermit kingdom?
"Russian dictatorship is not an old-fashioned ideological dictatorship," dissident and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov told the BBC.
"It's a mafia-like structure and nobody is going to stay loyal to the mafia boss if no protection is offered.
"In the next few weeks, we could see dramatic changes in Russia when Putin's power structure may crumble because he will be simply running out of cash."
More public displays of defiance and courage are happening every night on the streets of Moscow and St Petersburg.
The faces of the anti-war protestors are largely young.
They don't watch the heavily-sanitised version of the invasion playing out on television.
They are using their VPNs to see the vision, the horrors, the rest of us see.
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Damaged cars and a destroyed accommodation building are seen near a checkpoint in Brovary, outside Kyiv. AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
More than 7000 have been detained so far.
They're inspired by the profiles in courage we're seeing almost daily of unarmed Ukrainians blocking Russian tanks.
Time will tell if the numbers will grow.
At some point, security forces may be faced with very large numbers of demonstrators.
They may then have the same choice to make as the East German border guards when the Berlin Wall fell: open fire on their own people, or do nothing.
Removing Putin from power would be revolutionary, but Russia has a history with that.
The collapse of the Soviet empire after 70 years of monolithic existence happened, to coin Hemingway, gradually - then suddenly.
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote after the French revolution: "Patiently endured so long as it seemed beyond redress, a grievance comes to appear intolerable once the possibility of removing it crosses men's minds."
There is a point at which the unthinkable becomes thinkable.
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