Putin's annexation of territory he didn't control was a serious mistake for him personally because, unlike his army, he cannot retreat from it.
Loss of soldiers in the initial invasion cannot be compensated for by mobilisation of twice the number of minorities, drunks and hacks, with no training to get them into shape and no morale.
Loss of their best equipment with logistics so poor they couldn't even fuel it all the way to Kyiv cannot be remedied, even in the longer-term.
Unlike in WW2, modern weapon production can't be ramped up by throwing millions of peasants into factories and there's no 'Lend-Lease' buddy this time.
Theft, fraud, falsification, poor maintenance and general corruption has hollowed out the Russian military.
They couldn't even locate a million uniforms for the newly-mobilised to discard when they run. That is a striking example of the broader problem of materiel that only exists on paper.
Military morale is so low it appears they are no longer a credible fighting force any time there is serious contact.
Triggering a war with NATO is not something to undertake lightly - the withering airpower, to begin with. Fighting NATO, boots and all, would be nothing like the Russian media fantasy of already fighting NATO, so forget tactical nukes.
It cannot be entirely lost on the Russian public that they are already getting badly beaten by Ukraine, utilising Western weapons, systems and tactics - and not even the latest versions.
The guy in that video, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Defence Committe, was a classic example of Russia's situation - barefaced lies, not even logically coherent are left unremarked.
To select just one - faced by five times the troops, armed with the best weapons from 55 countries, the Russians somehow always inflicted seven to ten times the losses...all while retreating, surrendering and deserting.
You couldn’t make this stuff up, yet here is this senior official - literally making this stuff up on tv, unchallenged, along with a whole lot of other contradictory nonsense.
