A big factor the Ruskies failed to consider before launching this war...
Ukraine has about 90k troops who are battle hardened from years of fighting pro-russian separatists in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region. Word is they are on the offensive in a number of different parts of Ukraine now. Putin has pissed away decades of political, economic and diplomatic capital with the rest of the world for an utterly failed dream of reestablishing the Soviet empire. He has also seen the once feared russian army decimated and badly humbled. The recalibration of russia's goals are absolutely an attempt to save face.