alt Hacker News>What makes you confident that they won't reasonably perceive this outcome as tacit permission to start coming for other territory?
Putin has approximately zero interest in territories and annexations. The entire war with Ukraine is exclusively a reaction to the Maidan in 2014, an attempt to prevent something similar in Russia.
Talks about "rewarding Russia" - is literally Putin's propaganda to hide his complete failure. There is no reward, the whole current situation in which Putin put himself, when his authority and influence is lower then ever - was planned as a short two week campaign with no downsides.
> Putin has approximately zero interest in territories and annexations.
Frankly, that's just horseshit.
He annexed Ukraine. He's taken territory in South Ossetia. His actions in Ukraine are a response to the lack of international community stopping him in his prior expansionist plays, and he will continue to push the boundary until he is stopped. Accepting Putin's claims about his motivations at face value is the height of naivety.