I think you underestimate Russia. The current state of the war is still in a gentlemen state. There are so many escalation steps left. From using chemical weapons to empty Odessa to closing the black Sea to let Belarus enter the war to destroy water systems to use bioweapons in all border area to mass invasion to destruction of all Dnjepr bridges to assissination of government personel to destruction of government buildings to sinking of western oil carriers to dropping nuclear bombs on London or Berlin . Really the current war is nothing yet
Nah, you just haven't been paying attention to recent events. Russia doesn't have any forces capable of closing the Black Sea. Belarus is sitting on the fence and while they provide Russia with some logistical support they're not interested in committing suicide by shoving their own small military into the meat grinder. Russia could probably kill a lot of civilians with chemical weapons but Putin still wants to capture Ukraine somewhat intact, and this would also likely trigger economic sanctions by neutral countries such as India. Russia has already made many attempts to assassinate Ukrainian government officials with very little success.
Russia is still dangerous but it's a pale shadow of the old USSR.