Yes, the first attack failed, so they changed the strategy. Now it’s an attritional battle that they are more likely to prevail in than Ukraine. I’m not denying they’re taking big losses. It seems that they’re willing to risk it as they haven’t withdrawn or asked for a ceasefire. There’s no way for Ukraine to win that kind of war unless NATO (meaning the USA) intervenes.
There is a way for Russia to punch themselves out, so that they do not pose a threat to others for a long time - expend their old Soviet arsenals, and impoverish themselves so they cannot afford a big military build up for ten or twenty years.
They are well down that road in Ukraine. NATO is getting Russia demilitarized for pennies on the dollar, relative to the cost of doing it in a direct war with Russia. Putin can’t disengage from that tar baby, and we can rope-a-dope him along, until Poland is a greater conventional military power than what is left of Russian forces.