[Python] Escaping quotes in Python subprocesses for Windows

I'm trying to terminate a Python program that uses many threads on its own.

If I'm not mistaken, just sys.exit() works fine.

However, to guard against my many mistakes, including losing references to threads, I tried the following:

subprocess.Popen(['start', 'cmd.exe', '/c', f'timeout 5&taskkill /f /fi "PID eq {os.getppid()}"'], shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)


I thought it was a problem with escaping the quotes, so I tried several things but failed. I gave up and did the following and it worked perfectly.

with open('exit_self.bat', 'w') as file:
file.write(f'timeout 5&taskkill /f /fi "PID eq {os.getppid()}"&del exit_self.bat')
subprocess.Popen(['start', 'cmd.exe', '/c', 'exit_self.bat'], shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)


How can I do it without temp files? What did I miss? For reference, I used /k instead of /c option of cmd.exe to leave the window and check the error message in the window, it is as follows:

Waiting for 0 seconds, press a key to continue ...
ERROR: Invalid argument/option - 'eq'.
Type "TASKKILL /?" for usage.


I'm not sure if it will help, but I added echo to see the syntax of the command being executed:

subprocess.Popen(['start', 'cmd.exe', '/k', 'echo', f'timeout 5&taskkill /f /fi "PID eq {os.getppid()}"'], shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)


The result is:

"timeout 5&taskkill /f /fi \"PID eq 3988\""

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