Timothy Snyder is a political scientist at Yale who has written incisive books about fascism. In this essay, he describes a scenario that will bring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to an end.

He does not believe that Putin will deploy nuclear weapons. He believes that the humiliating retreat of Russian soldiers on the battlefield will produce power struggles in Russia. The mercenaries that Putin has relied on from Chechnya and the Wagner Group (a neo-fascist militia) are unlikely to put their best troops at risk when the Russian military is retreating. The consequences will not be favorable for Putin.