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To keep NATO from militarizing Russia's southern border. Since then NATO has spent vast resources trying to do so and the Ukrainian military is largely defeated.
A large portion of the Russians are now under Russian control together with the valuable land in Ukraine. Left is a dysfunctional rump state with a demographic pyramid that makes South Korea's look healthy.
Russia is succeeding with its main objective, a multipolar world order. NATO has been cutting down on military spending for 30 years and deferring expenses and investments. Vast resources have been squandered in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ammunition stockpiles are low, equiptment is old and bases are in a sad state. Most European militaries couldn't even put together a functioning brigade before this war. Russia has created an endless black hole for military resources. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians will have to be trained over the next decades. Ukraine has the world's fourth largest air defence at the start of the war. It is effectively spent and they are currently burning through NATO's stockpile at a far higher rate than NATO can manufacture. Meanwhile SAM systems are being consumed at a high rate in the middle east. Ukraine's military is a quarter the size of the US military. Rebuilding it from ruins after the war is going to cost vast resources for many decades.
Russia's army is bigger now than at the start of the war and is fighting more effectively. Their airforce, navy and nuclear force is pretty much undamaged. The arms production has increased substantially. Between China and Russia NATO doesn't have the capacity to invade Iraq or play global hegemon. Russia doesn't have to defeat NATO, they just have to soak up resources to the point that the empire can't be sustained.
When russians fight, they only gain experience and become stronger. When ukrainians fight, they just die.
When russians have to re-equip their army, they only get better and more efficient at manufacturing. When westerners have to re-equip a small army, their empire just collapses.
To a great extent yes. Ukraine has lost more officers than Russia. They are running into German WWI problems where they take their best men and put them into elite units and send those men out first. Ukraine leads more from the front which causes higher death levels among officers. Ukraine rebuilt its military in a more western fashion with a professional NCO corps which is much harder to replace casualties in.
Russians have done a far better job at scaling manufacturing during this war. Also They aren't trying to control the middle east and fight a war against China.
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I'd just add that the biggest W for Russia in terms of creating a multipolar world order was financial and diplomatic, I think, not even military – for instance, Western nations freezing their assets and cutting them off from SWIFT, which both allowed them to popularize their alternative and put non-Western nations on notice that their assets in the West and any financial system that depends on Western countries are at risk.
(However on the flip side, I'm not sure the Russian air force is undamaged; they've lost a lot of Su-34s and Su-25s, haven't they?)
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