I share your concerns, I just don't see how surrendering Ukraine to his criminal actions lowers the risk of nuclear war. Given the corrupt and inefficient nature of the military and production systems now the norm in Russia, nukes are the last big hammer of military strength he has, and if putin is allowed to use the threat of that hammer to conquer his neighbors, then the threat of nuclear war remains and grows stronger.

As I'm sure you know, there are right wing hardliners in Russia who share putin's goal of reassembling a "Greater Russian" empire in eastern Europe, who back his bloodbath strategies to do this. I doubt very much that his success in Ukraine will end this lust, and battlefield nukes don't make conquering Ukraine easier. He has placed the globe in this state of risk and I have no doubt that he has been informed that he will not survive the use of nukes in any form, in any theater, that while escaped from the situation he has created is still possible now, it will disappear with nuclear escalation.

There are no safe solutions to putin's war of choice, and capitulation to his strategy of war crimes as first resort to global ambitions seems as dangerous as any other course.