Mr. Putin is already planning for victory. His latest so-called peace proposal — in which Russia keeps occupied territory and Ukraine is banned from joining NATO — was dismissed as propaganda by many Western leaders. But it is, in fact, the most realistic scenario for how this war will pan out.
I gotta give it to them, the whole Kiev in 3 days was a very clever bit of propaganda. They created an anchoring effect using a completely fictional scenario, and they’ve been measuring everything against that for the past two years. Anybody who’s not been following the war closely becomes easily convinced that Russia is doing a lot worse than it actually is as a result.