You are right, “Russia is losing and in the long term has lost.”
Russia’s woman central banker has tried repeatedly to warn him. In fact she may be one of the few people who actually tries to tell him the truth. But he is riding the tiger, and is still trying to figure out how to get off without being eaten. His latest move has been to tell her to reduce loan interest rates to 10%, probably about half of their current rate. He has killed a lot of his laboring force, and much of the rest is working in the 40%+ portion of the economy engaged in the higher paid defense industries; except that Zelensky is unemploying a lot of them, and with longer range missiles and drones will unemployment even more as the new year advances. Hardly a wise time to borrow money to start new business.
In addition to the factors you mention, the various Stans and Azerbaijan are beginning to look to Turkey for their future prosperity. When I saw a large map the other day I was surprised to see that Kazakhstan is more than 3 times the size of Ukraine. Who knows how many resources besides oil they may have. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are currently cooperating on developing a pipeline that completely bypasses Russia.
Who knows what deals Zelensky and Erdogan may have arranged regarding Crimea. Crimea was early ruled by the Crimean Khanate which had broken off from the Golden Hoard. Eventually the Khanate came under alliance and a degree of vassalship of the Ottoman Empire, for over 3 centuries, until Russia’s Catherine the Great won it in the battle with the Ottomans around the same time the US won its war with England. The Ottomans had complete control of the lower coast of Crimea, but the Khanate had more control in the north of Crimea and in their relations with the other Khanates and rulers to the north of Crimea.
The Stans and Caucasus countries were mostly under Russian rule and misrule for several centuries. When Russia fell apart in 1991, they along with Ukraine were quick to declare their independence and establish their own governments. The current weakness of Russia makes them even more protective of their independence from Russia, as well as interest in their Muslim origin. Russia won two Chechen wars, but if things get bad enough, the Chechens may fight again. Various oblasts (Russian states) have populations that are getting sick of how Russia treats them. If Russia has another 1991, it may shrink still further.
China is paying attention to the Siberian area as well. China is not happy with the development of petroleum resources promised to China by Russia. Siberians of various ethnicities are not happy with how Moscow has treated their fighting age men. Whether various things will change, even without the severity of a 1001 collapse, bears watching. For Putin it is another big worry.
So many things going wrong could worry a man to death, as Zelensky has pointed out.
A rather interesting thing happened this week, barely reported - in response to a resurgent production of the “evidence” that NATO promised not to expand, some Russians presented some other information from the same period.
Putin, Dugin, Zhirinovsky, and a few others, were in a camp that in effect thought that the post-USSR “geopolitical reality” would be that the so-called “commonwealth of independent states” and some of the states that used to be under the Warsaw Pact, would be absorbed as vassals, back into the Russian sphere of influence. Specifically, the named states included Ukraine, Belarus and Khazakhstan. They were the camp that utterly rejected the independence petitions of some regions of the Russian Federation (like from Chechnya and Tatarstan).
In 1997, Russia and NATO signed the NATO-Russia Founding Act, establishing cooperation and consultation, AND confirming Russia accepted NATO’s open door policy. This was of course after the Budapest Memorandum and Belovezha Accords had already confirmed that Russia agreed that countries that were not already part of the Russian Federation, would remain independent of the RF.
This week, some of the papers from that time were published. Khazakhstan in particular may be interested to know that in some of them, Putin and other fellow travellers made it abundantly clear that they saw it, as well as Ukraine, as a fake country that has the temerity to assert that it is independent of Russia.
Belarus is the exception - and that is only because Lukashenko has always accepted vassal statehood in return for Russia keeping him propped up as leader for life.
Some of the ‘stans are already starting to get openly frosty at Putin’s abusive relationship with them. Chinese backing is starting to look preferable to the continued stagnation in the service of Muscovy.
As more information surfaces about what the western Russian & Muscovite revanchists REALLY think about the vassal regions / states to the east, one does wonder how much longer Russia can count on their subservience. Khazakhstan is far from the only one that is seriously reconsidering its loyalties.
-——He has killed a lot of his laboring force——
Putin, with hat in hand, recently made a trip to India.
In addition to try to convince India to rescind the crude oil purchase curtailment, Putin asked for workers. Indian labor will be utilized in far eastern Russia where there is a severe labor shortage. The men are in fact...... dead
Then there is traitorous California.
California facing a severe crisis in the availability of gasoline and diesel meeting the California requirements, has been an is, importing both from India.
California is buying gasoline and diesel distilled by Indian Refineries from Russian crude. California is in violation of American sanctions