If I'm Putin, I'm looking at this as something that's going to be a long, dragged-out process that I will eventually prevail at, assuming I can remain in power long enough. Yes, there are sanctions enforced, but I've got China that is probably willing to stick with me as well as some other countries that aren't "The West". I also have tons of oil and gas as well as the ability to mine raw materials plus my factories are still intact and able to continue to produce military hardware. I also have bodies to throw at the fight (for now) and I've got the ability (again, for now) to mostly control the narrative within my own borders. The biggest danger to the operation is that the people find out what The West is saying about the Special Military Operation and start blaming Putin and The Kremlin for the pain that they're feeling economically. But if Putin keeps up the Big Lie, he might be able to turn that whole economic pinch into propaganda. If I were him, I would want to spin that to say that The West is so intent on keeping the nazis in power and committing genocide against our people that are trapped behind the borders of Ukraine, and so on that not only are they willing to kill the fellow Russian-speaking peoples that just want to be free of Ukranian oppression, but now they're coming after the Russian people, too. Oh, and by the way, the evil imperialist United States has been working with Ukraine to develop dangerous bio weapons that specifically target Russians and they were planning to unleash this attack on us, so we had to take preemptive action.
Not all the people would believe that, of course, but you don't need to fool all the people all the time, just enough of them to keep from getting assassinated or overthrown and then assassinated. Or, you know, abdicating power and then getting assassinated anyway which seems to be how the Russians like to roll, historically.
As far as The West is concerned, they aren't going to do a damned thing because they're terrified that Russia might respond with a nuclear strike. And the best reads on Russian military doctrine seem to indicate that a small tactical nuclear strike might be considered acceptable. Frankly, if Russia didn't have nukes I strongly suspect that there would have already been some sort of boots-on-the-ground in Ukraine. Maybe another coalition of the willing, maybe NATO, maybe UN. Putin know this, which is why he's been reminding everyone about his missiles. Look at the hot potato game that's been played with the Polish Fulcrums to see how that has changed the balance. And he's now saber-rattling about the supply convoys that are coming in from The West to resupply the Ukrainian military.
If I'm looking at this from the far end of the Putin table (which I think doubles as a soccer pitch), I would be betting that while Ukraine is able to put up a good fight, and while they're able to get some small arms, some anti-tank weapons, and some anti-air weapons, I have been successful in shutting down their ability to get any big iron into the country. We're already seeing that as this drags on the Russians have lost any compunction against laying siege to the cities and pounding them with artillery fire and bombing them to ruin, so we can expect that to happen. Since the Russians can manage to resupply themselves more effectively than the Ukrainians, they'll be able to continue to bring more of that type of hardware to bear on Kyiv and the other population centers. Sure, there will be an insurgency and door-to-door fighting, but if I'm Russia, this looks like it is basically only a question of time before there's no real organized military left, nor any city standing to defend. I might be losing equipment and people in greater numbers that I planned on, but for Putin this is probably a case of "some of you may die, but that's a chance I'm willing to take".
So if I slip back into Putin's slippers again, what would the downside be of hitting Kyiv with a medium-yield nuclear warhead? Okay, so I have to worry about the fallout blowing back towards me right now, but I think the winds shift a little bit later in the year. That might anger The West, but right now they're afraid of me because I might fire off a nuke. Won't they be even more afraid of me if I show that I'm actually willing and able to do so? I could justify it in similar fashion to how the US made the calculation to use the atomic bomb on Japan: These people are going to drag out the war and keep fighting and fighting until there's almost no-one left. That door-to-door fighting will result in the deaths of so many of their people and our boys that the best way to save the most lives is to bring this war to a swift end with a catastrophic blow. Knowing Putin, he might even be able to spin that to his people that it was the only option to completely destroy the biological agent that was in the process of being deployed against Russia.
If he did that, how would The West react to that? How would China react? Would the other non-NATO countries that Putin has his eyes on be more willing to just roll over and be assimilated into the USSR, Second Edition once they see that Putin was willing to do anything and that the most they could expect from The West would be sanctions and an attempt to funnel weapons to the local insurgency? Russia would be a pariah state for much of the world, but would China and India continue to work with them, buying their oil and gas? Would that be enough to keep their economy propped up enough? Could or would the US cut off trade with China if China decided to stick with Russia and, by the way, go grab Taiwan while they're at it?
To me, it looks like Putin's playing chicken with the world right now, waving his nukes around and daring us to make him stop, Not that it's the wrong answer, but I think we've blinked first and he knows it. We've decided that we don't want to risk going to war with a power that could use nukes and if the cost for that is $Ukraine, we're willing to pay it.
I dunno, just some stuff I was thinking about in the shower this morning.
