Raising my forecast to 5% from 1% given the missile and rocket fire of the past several days and high potential for further escalation.
It's likely that Hezbollah has asked Iran for more direct military support against Israel. As we've seen, Iranian leaders are wary of the risks of direct military conflict with Israel given Israeli capabilities to penetrate Iranian airspace, but I believe that an ongoing, escalatory military exchange between Israel and Hezbollah would prompt a steadily increasing chance of forcing Iran's hand, especially if Israeli action against Hezbollah rises to the level of becoming an existential threat to Hezbollah's existence.
I share @cassandra 's forecast of 6%. I'm looking at:
1. Health: Considering actuarial tables for a Russian 71-year old male, with persistent rumors of Putin's health problems but conversely with access to world-class healthcare, I assess Putin having around a 4% chance of dying of unpreventable natural causes in the coming 10 months.
2. Palace coup / assassination: Putin has neutralized or neutered eliminated every foreseeable political rival, and has instituted draconian personal security measures (50' long conference tables, food tasters, several body doubles, etc) that make it nearly impossible for an internal coup (ie from his personal bodyguard) or assassination attempt to succeed. Maybe 1% chance.
3. Ukraine war fallout: Some overlap with previous scenario, but this would look more like a popular or oligarch-driven systemic overthrow, after Russia reaches an economic and social tipping point that yet another year of economic decline and military failure could trigger. Russian propaganda has so far been successful at masking from the population the extreme degree of long-term, comprehensive, cross-sector damage that Russian's invasion of Ukraine has caused, but cracks in the propaganda wall coupled with more Ukrainian battlefield advances in 2025, could sow enough discord among oligarchic elites, mid-level military officers and intelligence agents, and common Russians that a coup attempt -- accompanied by significant violent clashes between anti-Putin forces and pro-Putin loyalists - could succeed. Maybe 4% chance of this.
Collectively I feel like this generates, for now, a 6% probability of resolving yes by 7/1/2025.
gdrcould