NEW YORK — With Russia under pressure on multiple fronts, President Vladimir Putin finds himself in a tighter spot than at any other moment of his quarter-century in power. Putin remains firmly in charge of the Kremlin, but there is a growing risk that he will try to escape his current predicament by escalating his conflict with the West. Putin’s first problem is that his war in Ukraine has no momentum. Recent territorial gains have come slowly and at the cost of enormous loss of life (some 450,000 killed, almost eight times the US body count in Vietnam) and economic damage. After four years and four months, Russian forces control about 20% of Ukraine’s territory—the same percentage they held three years ago. Ukraine, meanwhile, continues to demonstrate its determination to win, its resilience in the face of Russian missile and drone attacks, and its remarkable capacity for innovation in weapons and battlefield tactics. Its successes have emboldened it to go on offense. Most notably, Ukraine has successfully brought the war to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia has occupied fo