Contrary to popular opinion early in the war, that Putin was acting crazy, he is actually being quite rational. Yes, he misjudged the Ukrainian people's will to fight and the amount of aid that would inspire the West to provide. But Putin, has no desire to expand the war to include the US and/or NATO. If he is just patient (many years) the west will probably get distracted by something else, aid will slow to Ukraine, and Russia could win a war of attrition with Ukraine. So Putin will continue to do nothing but protest the west actions, and rattle the nuclear saber.
That ignores the long-term effect of sanctions. IMO, between sanctions and Ukraine whittling down their forces, Russia is on borrowed time. If trade were normalized, and without western military support, sure, Russia would likely win a war of attrition. Even if the West gets bored and stops supplying weapons, Ukraine would potentially still be able to purchase weapons, while Russia would be frozen in time a la North Korea.
The promise of sanctions doesn't match history. Other South Africa, and maybe Libya what countries have changed course because of sanctions? Burma, Cuba, China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela are under "strong" sanctions and scores of countries are under weaker sanctions. The leaders are still in power, they are still killing their own, people and many cases threatening to kill other countries, and obviously, Russia is doing precisely that
"And the brain drain effect. Russia has lost a LOT of people in the last few months, and most of them are the people you don't want to lose - younger, highly educated. Putin is increasingly left with the old, the very young, and the uneducated/unintelligent."
Agreed it is a significant loss, and the Russian economy is hurting, but other than computer chips, Russia is a pretty self-reliant country, they export food, and energy. They have lots of heavy industry, and military production. Yes, it is poorly run and very inefficient.
But Ukraine's economy is also suffering, I saw on the PBS Newshour 50-70% of Ukrainian winter wheat isn't planted, they lack manpower, fertilizer, and equipment. Plus even if they can get it planted and harvested, how will they get shipped out. Odesa is blockade by Russian warships. What if Trump is elected and he stops aid to Ukraine, after all Zelensky wasn't very nice to Trump, plus Trump would hate to have to compete with Zelensky for press attention. Where would Ukraine get the money to buy the weapons, with it is major export unable to leave the country?
The last report, I saw Europe was buying $1 billion dollars a day worth of Russian energy, which dwarves aid to Ukraine by an order of magnitude.
I've painted an admittedly grim picture in Ukraine, but I think talk of Putin's decisive loss in Ukraine is very premature.