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If the worst happens and Russia wins this war, its total scorched earth policy means it will be a pyrrhic victory at best. They will then have to spend an indefinite future defending huge swaths of useless land and destroyed cities from NATO troops on the border and guerrilla rebels among what's left of Ukraine's population. It will be far worse than the failed Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Putin doesn't really win even if he wins at this point.
His itty bitty pieces won't allow him to quit ... yet. My guess is when he starts losing money, that'll be the end of it.
when he starts losing money
When he loses his life, that will be the end of it. And not a moment sooner.
He must be losing money already. The Russian economy has gone belly-up and he probably has a lot of his accounts frozen because the money is in Western banks.
True, but he's also been buddy-buddy with Xi, Kim and the UAE in public meetings ... gaining support and trade deals from those nations.
I honestly don't think he's personally lost much at all (yet). But it will happen sooner or later.
At this point it's more about the symbolic victory for propoganda's sake with a recent tide about other emerging or fully authoritarian states eyeing up their neighbors based on historical grievance culture
Iran over Mesopotamia and the Levant, Azerbaijan and Armenia/Northern Iran, Israel and everything between the Nile and Euphrates, Argentina and the Falklands, Ethiopia and everyone with coast access in their vicinity, Venezuela and Esequibo, Turkey and Northern Syria, and most importantly of all for Russia now, China and their own irredentist territorial claims.
China backs Russia because a successful forced recognition of the annexation of Ukraine in whole or in part sets precedent that Beijing should be allowed to do it to Taiwan if they win an invasion and establish an occupation. What Beijing is actually betting will happen though, is that Russia is going to blow itself to pieces against Ukraine, allowing them to establish a much harsher grip in future negotiations they want to settle, like access to Lake Baikal, or Siberian natural resource wealth, or cheaper fossil fuels, or probably what Beijing sees as their own grand prize, quelling the Taiwan fervor among their population by instead extorting a return of the former lands of Manchuria which Russia took in its own unequal treaties with China.