When you put rational people in extremely chaotic situations, they tend to make very irrational choices.

As of just a few hours ago we just entered a world where the following is an actual possibility, albeit an unlikely possibility: Prigozhin closes in, creating an existential crises for Putin and his inner circle. They believe this is a western backed coup where defeat isn't just personal but also defeat for Russia. Putin & his inner circle are put in a position to consider retaliation under the context of a rapidly deteriorating existential crises.

I'm a voracious consumer of history and I can tell the one thing you learn from history is how a set of seemingly unrelated harmless dominos change the world overnight whether if its the death of a duke from a second tier power or the ambition of a failed artist.