You’ve sort of tangentially touched on something here that I’ve been thinking about lately, and so sorry for the TL;DR post that’s not about hard facts. I don’t think that Russia, at this point, has a coherent conception of victory.
Last year I laid out some plausible war aims for the Kremlin and got pretty close on what VVP wanted. It is blatantly clear that his maximalist aims are no longer remotely attainable. Even more minimal aims are no longer attainable. But there has not been a corresponding communication, even as subtext, of what revised war aims might be.
There is a theory, which I am skeptical of, that VVP is so isolated that he has no idea what’s going on and remains committed to the full de-Nazification plan. But it’s hard for me to see a clear alternative. I think the MOST likely is a hope to freeze the conflict more or less along current lines, ramp up destabilization ops, hope the West fractures, and regenerate for another day. But then again, the monomaniacal waste of forces in the pursuit of Bakhmut makes no sense as part of that tactic.
At this point, I think even Kremlin leadership has no plan except to avoid a catastrophic loss. And that bodes ill for negotiations because without a clear idea of what winning looks like it’s not possible to make real decisions on what to settle for.
I want to come back to Putin as a spook and not a military man. He is not a strategic thinker and his background is a hindrance. Spooks operate in a world of more or less permanent hostility in which you can get the better of a rival or be gotten the better of— but clear defeat or victory is always elusive and defined by someone else anyway. And you’re never all in but also never all out. This is good in that he’s planned this war like a spook and that’s been bad. It’s bad in that he’s far too comfortable with permanent conflict as a “solution.”