In March 2022 Russia occupied 27% of Ukraine. They have now lost much of their artillery tanks and then army and now control 19% of Ukraine while their oil refineries blow up, and recently tankers. I'm not sure the conquest is going quite to plan.

> Russia will conquer Ukraine, any other prediction at this point is absurd.

Are you sure? They are advancing, sure, put look what they paid for to achieve this: 300k dead, 700k wounded, depletion of their souvereign wealth fund, 20%+ inflation, lower oil production and so on.

Some would dispute the "downward" part there.

Not trying to be the world's policeman would allow tremendous downsizing of the military and its associated expense.

Decoupling and isolation is a very rational response if nuclear proliferation is going to accelerate, in order to avoid having entangling alliances pull the country into a nuclear equivalent of the first World War.

> Russia will conquer Ukraine

Perhaps the objective isn't to conquer the whole of the Ukraine, but only most of it, leaving the western parts independent.

This seems to be pushed as the right approach wrt the Ukraine in Alexander Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics, which apparently is used as the source for Russia's current "Eurasianist" geopolitical doctrine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

Are you expecting Ukraine to ultimately buckle and collapse if the war of logistics continues for long enough?

It doesn't seem like Russia has the will, or potentially the capability, to actually conquer Ukraine rather than squat on some of their land and hope to move their border.

Russia is on the same spiral, but further ahead. They're going down together. The US has some chance of pulling out of the nose dive, but it's slim.

They may or may not take Europe and Ukraine with them.

China is better placed to survive, but has its own structural issues.

>Russia will conquer Ukraine, any other prediction at this point is absurd.

They have been moving across Ukraine at a literal snails pace.