I don’t have a “side” as this seems to be defined around here as rooting for Putin or rooting for the Ukrainian comedian, but ask yourself one question.....
Is Putin growing stronger or weaker the longer this conflict draws out?
If he is growing weaker, which appears obvious and logical, why has he not committed more forces to decisively end the conflict?
Obviously he is very concerned. His time is being spent with China and other obligations. We shall see.There is no way Eukraine will stand against Russia. That would be similar to Mexico vs the US. Yet the US in its proxy war is arming the Eukraine. What are the BIdens hiding?
Because he can't. Putin can not call for mobilization under Russian law without declaring war. That would mean he would have to admit to the Russian people the special military operation is a full scale invasion. The Russian economy is not brushing off the effect of sanctions either. Mobilization would affect his stature inside Russia.
There is a limit on how much Russia can really deploy. They tend to fight no more than 100 miles away from a railways. There is a upper limit on how many troops Russia can deploy, between 180,000 to 200,000 maximum. Deploying 50k in Vladivostok for war games does not means they can turn around at go to Ukraine. Even if Russia has spare forces to send, they can't support them.
Putin does not want to go to full mobilization, does not have the spare forces, can't get them to Ukraine, and can't magically produce logistics to support more than they can. This is not the Russia of History Channel documentaries or of the Reagan years anymore.