Hard to say what Russia’s true aim was at the start. Maybe just a puppet regime. Maybe they still eventually succeed in assassinating Zelensky. Though if that was their only aim, surely they could have done that without staging a full invasion. But the same could be said for us with Iraq. We didn’t have to go there just to get saddam. We could have sent a drone and done it immediately. It’s always about the economics. Ukraine has a lot of food and oil. Iraq had a lot of oil. Afghanistan a lot of opium. And of course the wealth gained from those assets makes you even stronger.

I guess I would say that Russia holding any land at all would be a “win”. But the question is how long will they hold areas they‘ve taken. And if in the long run they leave like we did, then it’s not a win, no matter how much they hold today.