Would you call the side of a conflict losing people (from
civilians fleeing in millions), losing territories, losing well
trained troops that had to be replaced with the poorly trained
and suffer extensive destruction of infrastructures not losing
the war with a straight face?.
Yes I would.
Putin wanted to militarily annex Ukraine. He failed.
Additionally he lost some of his own territory.
The poorly trained troops from the poorest country in Europe cannot be made to surrender.
Instead he is using criminals, North Koreans and Africans.
More than a million of his own citizens have fled Russia because they dont want to have anything to do with his war.
He tried politically justifying the whole thing. He failed.
Now Russia is a world pariah and even the US throwing Ukraine under the bus does not seem to have changed his luck.
