I clearly remember Putin saying he must “denazify” the whole country and take its government. Also that Ukraine should never have been given its independence.
And over the last two years Russia actually suffered setbacks and lost some territory back to Ukraine.
I agree Putin at this point wants to settle for what he’s got, maybe.
The war still has been a disaster for Russia on many levels.
Really, all the western sanctions really did was force western companies out of Russia and the Russians kept all of the knowledge, facilities and employees and freed themselves from western corporate dominance. And for those imports from the United States in Europe they just replaced with ones from China and other countries. Just look at all the wester corporations that were forced to leave the Russian: