Putin apologists here, they want to suck his toes. They think he is head of a Ceasar’s Legions or Patton’s tanks. “Surround and starve”, is about as much sense an explanation as the Bonsai Charge or Kamikaze. The Russians are losing armor at a devasting rate. Those hypersonic missiles, they have less than 100 of them and when they’re gone, they are gone, without chips and the technology to build new ones. They had a little less than 2000 serviceable modern tanks (T-80 or better), They have lost 10% of them in less than a month. No doubt they will take the cities but will lose 100k men and seriously deplete their combat effectiveness to fend off NATO. There won’t be a place in St. Peterberg or Moscow that groups more than 50 people together that won’t be a target for Ukrainian terrorists. Whether it be the soccer pitch or subway. The Russians the day they invaded lost, just a matter of time till they retreat from Ukraine a shell of what they were. This is Afgahnistan v2.0 for them.
Losing 6 a day out of 2000 means they will run out of tanks in less than a year. Yikes.