Unfortunately, grasping tiny threads of hope based on some anecdotes of dissatisfaction within Russia does not alter the larger picture. We need to remember that in the USA in the 1960s and early 1970s there was widespread dissatisfaction with the VietNam war, and many people fled to Canada in order to avoid the draft - yet this in no way impeded US ability to persist with an entirely futile and foolish war. Russia, being a dictatorship, can ignore far greater displays of dissatisfaction than ever occurred in the USA because the Kremlin does not hesitate to use coercive violence against anyone who dares to speak out against Putin's stupidity.

As ordinary people everywhere mostly do whatever it is that purported authority figures tell them to do, and as ordinary people generally believe whatever it is they see on the "news" its clear that Russia has the capacity to send cannon-fodder into battle for years, so as to exhaust Ukrainian stocks of materiel and ammunition and thereby eventually succeed despite all operational ineptitudes and inadequacies. Ukraine relies entirely on the West for resupply, and Western politicians & voters are self-centered, ignorant, foolish, spineless, and incapable of sustained support for anything that requires even a modicum of self-discipline. The odds, therefore, are still on Russia's side despite all the well-publicized setbacks eagerly reported by sensation-mongering Western journalists.