They’re arguing in this thread that the war is acoomplishing strategic goals for Russia so it’s a win even with the material loss, but implying that Ukraine has no legitimate strategic goals in resisting or otherwise they wouldn’t claim that Ukraine should have just worked with Russia

No, Russia would not be 'better off'.

Their concern is not 'industrial base' - it's 'Imperial Conquest'.

As of today, they've expanded their territory and now have Crimean, most of Donbas and S. Ukraine as acquisitions.

Theoretically we could get to a peace agreement and in 40 years, Russia will be 'just fine' and Putin will be a 'grand hero' of Russia along the lines one of their big baller Tsars.

All of this 'But their GPD is crashing' stuff is incredibly short sighted, of course it matters, but much less in the long run.

I suggest Ukrainians probably will prevail, and Putin will mostly 'lose' - but only because he lost ground, not really for any other reason, in the eyes of 'Net future Russian Historical Perspective'.

I don't know.

If this debacle turns into Putin being toppled and Russia as an empire collapsing, and increasing casualties and quality of life declining further for Russians, how is this going to help anybody's dream of imperial conquest?

Even if this alleged empire doesn't fall, if it gets isolated and dependent on, say, China (as some claim will happen), how is this going to help these dreams of imperial conquest? A subservient empire.