Did you miss the news just yesterday that Ukraine shot down an entire Russian air group yesterday?
Does that sound like operating freely?
Time for Russia to either freeze the line and give up on proceeding, or launch a massive nuclear blitz against Ukraine. My bet, NATO doesn’t dare respond with nuclear weapons. At that point, it’s does Russia have the nuclear forces to go toe to toe with NATO. It may be worth sacrificing their nation if it means the end of the West. They have a moral commitment to the end of Western hegemony.
Or if they’re really smart, a joint Chinese-Russia mass nuking of the West. If they can’t go that far, they should give up. Will they ?