The Russkies screwed up because once the Ukrainians got organized they halted the Russian advance— it wasn’t even the Ukrainian army in general that made the biggest gains, but volunteer militias such as Right Sector, which even has Jewish Brigades working under it, who were performing the most dangerous tasks and with zero pay, but for the glory of God and country.
All that momentum the Russkies had with Crimea was lost and is now entirely on the Ukrainian side, despite horrible economic conditions and a lack of supplies. At least 5,000 Russian soldiers are reported to be dead, not counting so-called “separatists” from Neo-Nazi and Stalinist like organizations who came into Ukraine at Moscow’s bidding.
Now the Russkies just have a sliver of land in East Ukraine compared to what they had just a few months ago when the Ukrainian army was basically worthless, and they keep getting chopped to pieces every time they mount an attack, and all this because the Russkies are too afraid to give up the fiction (that nobody but Paul-Bots and Putinistas believe) that these forces are merely “separatists”, so they won’t commit any airpower or launch cruise missiles to take out Ukrainian targets. (Though the average Ukrainian patriot, I expect, would still make it a bloody war for them.)
Vlad the Czar and expert strategist did not achieve his military objectives, objectives that the Russkies had been preparing for literally for years and yet still couldn’t cut it. Now the Chechens are even starting to get restless and are actively gunning for Kadyrov and the other Russian puppets who currently occupy their country.
Dead man walking?
A letter from Lincoln to General Hooker is relevant here. "Only those generals who gain successes, can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship."
Dictators, which sort of describes Putin, cannot survive politically, and sometimes literally, major defeat.
Russia's finances are headed down the toilet due to energy prices.