This is an embarrassingly naive article that won't age well. The author appears to believe the foolish reportage of Western news agencies and doesn't seem to understand anything about standard Russian military doctrine. Russia's invasions rarely go well, but they usually succeed in the end because Putin is willing to expend enormous numbers of lives and quantities of materiel in pursuit of his aims - a fact that apparently escaped the author's notice. Far from having lost, Putin will simply wait out the West's ability to remain focused. Some new sensation will come along to distract us, internal divisions will weaken us, and when Putin finally reduces Ukraine to rubble we'll congratulate ourselves on having avoided nuclear war.

Until he then invades the Baltic nations, having kept all his best troops and equipment in reserve. Russia may be crippled by corruption and a terminally inept military organization, but that's always been the case. And it's never stopped Russia from ultimately succeeding in nearly every case over the last century, the sole exception being Afghanistan when the USSR leadership no longer had the will to continue. Putin has plenty of will, and no internal opposition to worry about. The West has a very weak will and is chronically divided. So let's revisit this naive article one month from now and see how poorly it has aged.