Russian choice between nuclear weapons and leaving Ukraine 'rapidly approaching,' expert says

As Russia begins to lose the ability to conduct military operations on the ground in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin will soon be faced with the decision to use weapons of mass destruction or get out of Ukraine, a defence analyst says.

The invasion of Ukraine has reached a turning point where Russia's ability to conduct combat operations might no longer be realistic, given their dwindling weapon stockpiles, Nicholas Drummond, a former British army officer and now a defence analyst, told CBC News.

"Putin will reach a point where he either has to escalate using weapons of mass destruction or to withdraw, and that is the point at which we are rapidly approaching," he said.

Russia's biggest air strikes against Ukraine since the start of the war killed at least 19 people Monday, drove thousands of Ukrainians back into air raid shelters and knocked out electricity in hundreds of towns and villages.

The strikes — denounced in the West for deliberately hitting civilian targets — have been hailed by hawks in Moscow as a turning point that demonstrates Russia's resolve in what it calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine.

But Western military analysts say the strikes came at a staggering cost, depleted a dwindling supply of long-range missiles, hit no major military targets and are unlikely to change the course of a war going badly for Moscow.

Putin "has a finite quantity of missiles like the ones he used to attack Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine, and once they're gone, that's it: he's done," Drummond said. "So he needs to do something radical to regain the initiative."

Drummond believes Putin is trying to decide what the West will do if he uses a nuclear weapon. The West must not back down while not provoking an escalation, he said.

Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London, said Russia's attacks are a sign of desperation. The country doesn't have enough weapons to keep up the intensity of Monday's attacks, he said, adding that Ukraine has claimed a high success rate of intercepting the missiles.

The attacks on civilians are likely to only harden Ukrainian and Western resolve, he said.

"This is not therefore a new war-winning strategy but a sociopath's tantrum."

Tom Nichols, retired professor at the U.S. Naval War College, said it's all up to Putin how it will end. Unlike Drummond, he doesn't see an end on the near horizon.

"It was his decision to begin the war, and it has to be at this point his decision to end it," he said. "And I don't think there's any chance of that happening any time soon."

Putin described the strikes as a response to what he called terrorist attacks by Ukraine, including a blast on Sunday that damaged Russia's bridge to Crimea, which it built after annexing the peninsula it seized in 2014.