Fully agree that both sides in the article from @KYHorn come off sounding really dumb. Everyone knows China is supporting Russia and anyone with any intelligence and an ounce of honesty knows Russia/Putin isn't backing down. At this point, Putin's career and frankly life rest on the Ukraine outcome. Putin pushed all his chips in a while back. I know I keep repeating myself but this end only one of 3 ways. Putin is allowed to take full control of Ukraine and likely slaughter a substantial portion of the country (I think this is near zero chance of occurring if not full zero), Putin is overthrown by a Russian Military and Oligarchs coup, Putin is assassinated by the same Russian Military/Oligarchs group. These second 2 are, imo, very much the highest chance and I'd put it at 99% chance or better.
One could argue that global thermal nuclear war is a 4th option but I think internal forces within Russia go with one of the options above long before it gets to that point. Like option 1 above, it's not zero, but I think it is extremely close to zero.