I don’t think Putin has a choice except to double down. He can’t stand to lose face. He’s hoping something will come out of a powerful military victory. Even though I doubt that the losses he sustains in terms of public opinion will merit his victory. He’s earning his demise.As for assassinating Zelenski, he assumes that Ukraine is like Russia and one man is totally in charge like himself. So why not knock off that one man? The only “good” we can salvage from this is the unification of the US across party lines and also across the world and I’m sure of that’s of small comfort to the Ukrainians at the moment.