What's a positive endgame for Russia now? I don't see 1 maybe aside from proclaiming securing the newly recognized states, expanding grip on Donbas, & obtaining a Crimea landbridge a victory & calling it a day by exiting the conflict via negotiation. Otherwise Russia gets what?

A puppet government nobody listens to under constant attack via a horrific insurgency funded by the richest countries on the planet with a huge stake in seeing Russia ground down to a bloody stump? Oh and this only came via:

-Killing massive civilians and throngs of your own troops in a horrific urban conflict
-Turning all goodwill towards your country that existed globally into straight-up hatred
-Absolutely destroying your economy near term and the prospects for any growth long term

-Being boxed out of the world community politically, economically, and logistically
-The big one: galvanizing NATO and the EU into a single point of view, reversing all gains in fracturing those entities you see as most threatening

-Watching NATO countries pour huge sums of money into their fighting forces directly aimed at countering yours and as a result putting massive amounts of advanced military hardware and combat might on your border.

-Sparking a new nuclear arms race that you are now no longer in a financial position to win.
-Showing the world the deficiencies in your conventional fighting forces in high fidelity.

Not another Ukrainian soldier or Russian soldier should be sent to their grave for this war that should have never happened. Time for all parties to take the exit ramp that sits in front of them. It may be the last in a long, long while.

A couple weeks ago I discussed how this adventure into Ukraine could end up eerily like Afghanistan for Russia but worse. I think those comparisons are far more relevant now than then. Putin is a keen student of that era in SU history, hopefully, he capitalizes on that knowledge.

And yes nuclear capability is a wild card. What would happen if Russia detonates a nuclear weapon in the middle of a forest in Ukraine? Sounds ridiculous, but by some estimates, it is not. If this conflict turns into a total rout of Russian forces...

We do not know what Russia would do to freeze the conflict. That's why it is so important to make sure it never gets there. Everyone alive at the moment of negotiated peace leaves the battlefield with their souls intact and that genie safely in its bottle. Take the offramp now.