Isn't 30 days essentially a military and political failure though? I can see in Putin's thinking that a 3-5 day long decapitation strike would be feasible, and then they occupy Kiev and it's fait accompli.

But 30 days, with almost all of the world against it? It's way too long and someone else may get involved.

Desert Storm took that long when you consider the initial air campaign, and even then the ground invasion still took 4 days in a theater with complete air superiority, decent terrain for a mechanical warfare rush, and local support from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia

But was the rest of the world almost unanimously against Desert Storm?

I simply cannot see a scenario where a 30+ day slog in Ukraine, with attrition and mounting casualties, has any positive outcome for Putin.

(I struggle to see any positive outcome for Putin anyway and cannot understand what his endgame is, to be honest. Even success at toppling Ukraine's government, if achieved at all, may prove to be short-lived)

If Putin doesn't care about the opinion of his own voters, the whining of the Western world wont matter (China, Iran, Venzuela and others are not against Russia).

But don't you think in a protracted conflict some power is bound to get involved, triggering an escalation? With each day, week and month the chances of this increase.

It's one thing for Putin to get it done in a week or so. Even then, how does he plan to hold his puppet government in Kiev?

I wish I could be as optimistic as you are about that but looking at Georgia, Belarus, and other recent historical examples makes that hard. China, Russia, and Iran (with hangers-on like Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, et al) have been working hard at building an alternate global trade and financial system for more than a decade now, precisely to remove what little socio-economic leverage the west had. And, it's stil winter in Europe. The Germans and French need to heat their homes, which currently depends on Russian gas.

Also keep in mind that China is working towards this same "resolution" with Taiwan. It's in their interest for Russia to succeed here.

> decent terrain for a mechanical warfare rush, and local support from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia

This applies to Russia in Ukraine as well. It's mostly flat plains, Russia has support from Belarus and is a direct neighbour itself.