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I think a US "withdrawal" coupled with an EU "entry" could curiously be the closest to an actual winning strategy for the Western bloc in this war.
From the start, the war has been defined by a curious dynamic where the fence-sitting audience was in a way more important than the combatants actually fighting. Russia does not want to fight against anything resembling the actual full industrial power of the EU and US; Ukraine wants more of it, and can't bear to lose it; meanwhile, the fence-sitters want Ukraine to win, but they don't actually want to suffer deprivations, and it would take a lot of moral outrage to get them to come to terms with having to cut back on the occasional cute latte or family vacation. As a consequence, Russia has to fight with several hands tied behind its back - it can't produce too many Gaza-like pictures of historical city cores reduced to rubble, maimed children and crying mothers, can't just sink every single ship entering or leaving Odessa, has to allow the lights to be on occasionally, and can't give the Germans a meltdown by just taking out the NPPs already. (And then, of course, there is the actual logistical support backbone that is on sovereign NATO territory and they can't risk touching at all.) To an extent, they can afford going on like this because Ukraine, too, has to hold back - its PR allowance is generous but not infinite, and so we have not seen Belgorod reduced to rubble or random high-rises in Moscow 9/11ed. I reckon even some matters of inanimate logistics are dominated by this - Russia has not knocked out the bridges across the Dnipro because the symbolism of destroying such a recognisable piece of civilian infra could also result in a watershed of Western support, and Ukraine has given up its attempts on the Crimean bridge because if it did blow successfully the Russians might figure Westerners would be less shocked and appalled if it blew up major bridges across the Dnipro in return.
If the West goes all in against Russia, this consideration is out. Of course in a few years, if the war stays conventional, the West would still win easily - but I would expect the immediate effect to actually be a swing in the favour of Russia, as they could immediately and trivially knock out all centralised power in Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe and firebomb Ukrainian cities with no regard for optics, which would significantly hamper the main workhorse of Ukrainian resistance that is the ability to mass-produce FPV drones in nondescript basements and commercial spaces hidden in residential areas. The end effect would be a scouring of Ukraine and significant damage to everything on all sides, and depending on how the escalation spiral plays out around going nuclear the West might even still chicken out and settle before its industrial might is fully retooled towards war.
On the other hand, if the US makes a point of staying out, the dynamic from before more or less continues unchanged, except now Ukraine also has all of Europe's military heft on its side. Russia will be left wondering at every step whether they can really afford to do the militarily necessary, or it will produce pictures that will push the US public and Trump over the edge after all, and it is probably in fact true that even a few civilian casualties in Germany will piss off the US much more than the same casualties are doing in Ukraine. As a result, their fear will force them to continue their current piecemeal strategy of poking at the Ukrainian front, while Europe gradually cranks up its production and gains experience until eventually even the belated decision to firebomb Kiev would not really make a difference anymore.
Russia has been more than happy to bomb historic buildings and civilian targets like shopping malls, apartment complexes, and hospitals. It hasn't moved the needle. They've also been happy enough to bomb bridges and electrical infrastructure almost continuously. There was supposed to be a minor truce at one point I think where they wouldn't bomb some electrical infra, but it fell apart almost immediately. They have limited themselves in attacking civilian ships and nuclear power plants though, as the risk of a nuclear meltdown is just bad for everyone. And yeah, they can't bomb logistics in NATO countries like Poland due to diplomatic repercussions, but otherwise Russia is fighting pretty much as hard as it can. I don't know why you think Russia is fighting with "several hands tied behind its back", as its not true for the most part. Russia even blew up that dam a while back (although they tried to muddy the waters and make it look like Ukraine could have done it).
So why do you figure are even cities like Kharkiv, which are in glide bomb range, still habitable and only minimally damaged? Why are Ukrainian civilian casualties still many times lower than those in, say, Gaza, despite the much greater scale of the conflict? Why are other dams on the Dnipro still standing, and why do you figure Russia would feel the need to "muddy the waters" if they don't actually care about the perception of the Western public?
Russia cares about worldwide public opinion to some small degree, it's just at a much lower level than you seem to think. If you asked the median Ukrainian if they thought Russia was fighting with "several hands tied behind its back", they'd almost certainly laugh at you. With the electrical bombings trying to freeze civilians to double tap strikes, there's a reason why citizens of the former brother-state of Ukraine are now calling Russians "orcs".
Russia is supply-constrained in many of its munition types nowadays. It doesn't have infinite rockets to just level every building. It's used its stockpiles and has to wait to produce more, then launch them in salvos. Even artillery shells are getting somewhat scarce (relative to the typical Russian way of war) which is why they bothered to get a bunch from North Korea.
He seems to be portraying the Russians as caring about it to the extent it could cause an increase in support for Ukraine, why would their actual level of caring be lower than that? It's completely cynical basic strategic thinking.
That has no bearing on whether or not they are actually going all out on them. The US collapsed most of the Iraqi civilian infrastructure when they invaded back in the day, this is what not caring about international opinion looks like.
Because most people won't care that much no matter what happens, as long as the Russians don't do something completely crazy like bombing nuclear power plants or nuking cities.
That would imply the Russians care more than what he's portraying not less - even though most people would not care, they're not doing a fraction of what the US did in Iraq, or what Israel did is doing in Gaza.
What? Are you saying Russia's occupation of Ukraine has been substantially less brutal than the US occupation of Iraq?
I don't think they crippled the civilian infrastructure to the same extent as the Americans did.
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Israel doing it many more times over might have helped their PR. Wouldn't surprise me if they even pulled some strings to trigger 10/7.
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If this happens, I actually have an outline of a long-post lined up for how this is consistent with the Biden administration's Ukraine strategy from the earliest years of the war, including it being a potential reason for why Biden took some oft-criticized decisions such as slow-rolling the expansion of aid / escalation options in the way he did. IE, why did the US wait so long before providing [X] asset or crossing [Y] redline.
Long-story short, the US strategy was a long-term strategy that prioritized developing a support-coalition that would survive exit of given members, including the US, after political turnover over maximizing short-term gains the US could provide on its own without European concurrence/co-contributions.
The "4d chess" interpretation of the Trump administration's policy is that they are leveraging a forcing function for greater European integration and remilitarization which are both good things. The thing is the "4d chess" hypothesis for explaining Trump's behavior has been wrong every time. This is also revealed by the Signal leaks which reveal Vance's genuine distaste for defending European interests.
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