Putin will announce defeat tomorrow at May 9 victory parade! If only

It is difficult to see how Vladimir Putin could find a formulation of words tomorrow at the Red Square end-of-the-Nazis celebration parade that could possibly include any sort of claim that Russia has won a famous victory in Ukraine. Even a Russian peasant planting potato seeds in his or her back garden must surely know by now that the great Russian "special military action" across the border has not gone as well as the Kremlin propaganda machine has been saying for the last few weeks. Especially if that peasant's son, let's say a 21-year-old conscript sent to fight his first war, has stopped writing home because he is dead. Putin will try to liken the war in Ukraine as a repeat of the Soviet fight against Nazism in the Second World War. But everyone, apart from Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister (is he still?), knows that is rubbish. So what can Putin say? I guess what he will say is that the brave and patriotic sons of the Russian motherland are engaged in a noble campaign to purge Ukraine of the western-loving regime in Kyiv and that Russia's Big Enemy, Nato, is involved in a conspiracy to annihilate Russia and all its people while helping the comic president of Ukraine to slaughter Russian soldiers.There will be no hint of peace in his speech. There will certainly be no hint of how the Russian forces have suffered a defeat. It will all be about glory glory glory. To the Motherland. Will he declare war against Ukraine and order a full mobilisation of all Russian males? Could he do that? If he does will that not tell the Russian people that his special military action has failed? If so, will the country be ready to rise up for their beloved leader and march in the hundreds of thousands into Ukraine? Since he ordered the invasion on February 24, Putin has been beset by a series of huge dilemmas as all his plans went awry. So the question is: how mad is he? Will he now go for broke and swamp Ukraine with a million fighting men? Whatever he decides we in the West know that Putin's big gamble is now a busted flush. It's over, Putin. Declare a victory if you really must but it's time to stop sending your soldiers to die as cannon fodder, let alone order your army and air force to kill hundreds if not thousands of Ukrainian civilians just for the sake of grabbing a stretch of land running down to Crimea. Unless Putin stops now, he will face years, if not decades, of insurgency and the ruination of Russia's economy. Ideally, in your speech tomorrow, Putin, just admit it. You've lost. If only.