I disagree.

Putin has lost. When you kill as many people as Putin has, you create a rift that will not heal until Ukraine is free and independent and the memories of those living no longer include those who lived through the war.

What you wrote could have been claimed by Stalin, yet everything he gained and more was lost.

Worse still, Russia’s “Russian” population is collapsing and Putin is accelerating that collapse through the loss of young Russian men. Russia is in population decline and creating enemies, the combination is toxic. I expect China will bite off a piece of Russia that is already populated by Chinese immigrants within 20 years.

Today winning is about preserving your population more than gaining territory.