It's a Russian thang.
As Hitler's Wehrmacht tore through eastern Russia at the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German troops were bewildered by Stalin's callous disregard for the lives of his soldiers. They killed and captured Russians in their hundreds of thousands, yet Stalin sent still more. They could not imagine that such profligacy in human life could possibly continue. Yet it did.
This prompted Colonel Bernd Von Kielst to write, "The German Army in fighting Russia is like an elephant attacking a host of ants. The elephant will kill thousands, perhaps even millions, of ants, but in the end their numbers will overcome him, and he will be eaten to the bone."
Putin doesn't have to "do it" forever, only until the elephant is eaten.
Say "Hello" to the new Stalin.
Make that western Russia.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.