It was a bad idea to begin with. Putin would and did flee to his bunker and then have to endure a siege on Moscow after that... There is no way they win a siege against the Russian army, in Moscow.

Putin lost his corn flakes.

Well that did not work so well the first time. No idea if they still have any anti air capacity though.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/26/wagner-group-shot-down-seven-russian-aircraft-coup-attempt/

The Russian Air Force sucks absolute balls at CAS. Apart from their general systemic issues, they don’t train for CAS, and it shows in Ukraine. Also, when Wagner tried to bum-rush Moscow the first time, pilots who actually attempted CAS missions didn’t do so well - there are several videos of them trying to airstrike Wagner positions and columns where the Russian pilots are not even close to putting munitions on-target effectively.

Wagner did manage to take down quite a few Russian air units in a short period of time before.

Whether that was due to lack of organization and command among the Russian military because of the surprise of Wagner's actions is up for debate, but I guess we might get to see how that turns out this time around.

https://www.businessinsider.com/wagner-prigozhin-took-down-7-russia-helicopters-plane-rebellion-ukraine-2023-6?op=1

They have decent aa, they were brutal on Russian jets.

Same could have been said for their day trip. And that saw several helicopters and a couple of fixed wing aircraft getting knocked out the sky.

We call them tactical landfill launchers.

I wonder if Putin will try destroying the roads to Moscow again.

Oops, All Taliban!™️

Every near nuclear war has been averted by Russian officers. The dude on the sub near Cuba and the other dude who realised that the USA hadn't launched nukes, it was their computer system falsely alerting.

100% success rate so far!

nukes were never on the table. putin's goal number one is holding power in russia, and it's no fun when it's all shiny glass or when you're dead. the reason behind invasion? believe it or not, also holding more power within russia. over two decades of putin's presidency, he carefully molded his electoral base to consist of nationalists, and every time he invaded another country his ratings went up (2008, georgia, 2014, donbas, 2022, ukraine, at least initially) because even if your elections are faked, you need it to be believable and you need to have some real support. that's even how he got presidency in the first place, by initiating second chechen war

in this situation, what options putin does have?

• he can't sue for peace right now, or deescalate in a big way, because his electoral base will see this as a sign of weakness and move on to another rabid nationalist
• he can't escalate, because he has little to escalate with, in terms of (modern) equipment and (mobilized) manpower. mobilization is an unacceptable political risk, additionally, he runs a risk of corresponding western escalation, with west is much more capable of, and would consist of equipment only, which is much less politically risky
• he can't use nukes, because there's already nuclear bunker buster with his name somewhere in the midwest and he probably wants it to stay there

the only survivable option for putin seems to keep intensity at this level or lower, try to limit western aid, and try to slowly grind through to whatever propaganda objective he wants. remember all these russian threats, that if west provides whatever equipment, they will use nuukes! it seems that everyone called bluff on this one, multiple times. conversely, the more favourable scenario for ukraine is escalation. more info here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWKGYnO0Jf4 https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=fWKGYnO0Jf4