And how far will they go to achieve that “victory”? Direct US involvement on the ground in Ukraine? Create a false flag incident as a pretext for NATO intervention?
We are entering a dangerous phase of this war, a war Ukraine cannot win.
Ukraine (maybe) cannot win.
But at the same time, Russia can lose.
It is not a matter of political will, but popular will. Russia is obviously scrambling to replace its ranks, and is even irritating its neighbors by openly trying to recruit in places such as Kazakhstan, where both recruiting and being recruited by a foreign nation is illegal.
At the same time, nobody likes Russians, who as Soviets made absolute swine of themselves and ruined many other nations. And many feel that with any success, Russia may turn on them next.
So for all their faults, there is much sympathy to Ukraine, or at least hope that they take Russia down several pegs.