Armchair analysis:

Continuing on the current path is not gonna get Putin the results he wants, he's not able to get Ukraine to surrender, any puppet administration he'd try to install would be immediately overthrown, he doesn't have the troops to occupy the country (an estimated 500k would be needed). He's left with two options, de-escalate or escalate.

De-escalation would require a peace offer, and Ukraine's government would likely stay intact. I don't see this as a likely option, Putin would lose face and even endanger his own power.

Escalation could be either ramping up bombing of civilian targets, more nuclear threats or expanding the war to other regions. At the moment it looks fairly likely he doesn't have the capability to escalate bombing without direct unguided munitions, which would leave their airforce more vulnerable to Ukraine air defenses. There's reports of this already from the past couple of days and seems like RU has lost a number of aircraft. They also don't have the troops to expand the war to other regions.

Hope I'm wrong but a tactical nuke is looking more and more likely, and his recent ridiculous claims that Ukraine is building a dirty bomb would also indicate that this is the direction we're going.