On Feb. 24, 2022, I—Vladimir Putin—sent troops into Ukraine to conduct a special military operation. As the president of Russia, I obviously expected resistance from leaders of certain key world powers, but I must say I’ve been surprised at how the United States, specifically, has reacted.
If the Russian government believes it can just roll tanks into any neighbouring country as it fancies, cheaply and quickly, confident that the citizens of that country will surrender happily and have their freedoms taken away from them, they will start more wars and claim more territory.
In war, there are mainly losers. It’s true Ukraine cannot win this war, but at this point, nor can Russia. Russia doesn’t even have enough soldiers to hold the entire country of Ukraine at this point, and maintaining control over any territory it captures will be expensive. That’s why they are focussing on capturing the Donbas region so they can claim victory and gain territory without losing face.
You appear to be woefully misinformed about this war. You’ll get a better idea of how it’s going in a month or so.
It’s very likley that in a month or so Russia will have achieved some of their new targets in the east of the country. But this will not come cheaply and they will have lost more than they stand to gain.
Here’s what was officially said on March 5th, I’m not aware of any change in their position since. So, not sure what these new targets you speak of are.
I’m also curious what you’re basing the statement that they will have lost more than they stand to gain on. They see NATO as an existential threat, and pushing NATO out of Ukraine for good is what they wanted to gain all along.