Dont be fooled by the mostly one sided media reporting you see everyday on the news.
As far as I know, Russia has over a million military personnel. They only sent an estimated 100k+ worth into Ukraine. They are just taking it slow to limit civilian casualties as well as to capture as much of Ukraine intact as possible. He needs Ukraine to be functioning to use it as an effective buffer to the NATO border countries. When you own the skies, you basically win the war. Putin is taking his own sweet time. I had thought they would try to end things before the spring weather starts thawing out the ground this month, but i guess they can use railway to bring in hardware/tanks now they have the eastern regions secured.
He doesnt need to justify anything, he had already in 2020 managed to get the people to vote for a removal of his 2 term limit( much like what Xi had done in china) so he gets to continue indefinitely as Prez. He is still hugely popular to the majority of Russian.
Whilst economic sanctions have caused some short term economic problems,
1) Russia has the gold to back their currency, unlike USA fiat dollars.
2)Russia can switch from SWIFT to other payment systems like chinese CIPS for bank payments
3) they have already started using chinese UNIONPay for businesses via phone apps/cards (chinas version of visa which now does higher transaction value than visa system).
4) Europe and the world is still buying their oil and gas (albeit at higher prices than before the war!! ROFL..) so the war is making them more money? Especially if you look at the other major stuff they still export like wheat and a whole heap of rare minerals and commodities, their exports may have gone down 50% but all these commodities have gone up 50%, some even 100%. Just look at the nickel prices. Even our coal export prices have shot up 30%!!!
Germany Says It Won't Stop Buying Russian Energy Despite Moscow’s War in Ukraine
Germany will continue to buy natural gas, oil and coal from Russia despite Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, the government in Berlin said Monday. Germany and Europe are too dependent on Russian energy imports for power, heating and industrial production to be able to cut trade links wit
5) Businesses like macdonalds closing but Russia is going to allow their own companies to take over the american patents
Theres just a few small anti-war rallies last week that have been shutdown quick smart in the usual fashion.
Not many countries are on the side of the americans on this one, and unfortunately USA has its own internal problems with high inflation now almost certainly going into hyperinflation coupled with a recession -- STAGFLATION ala 1970s again. In fact I dont think USA can continue with their sanctions much longer, especially if the democrats wanna stay in power in the upcoming US election.