> (and Swedish/Finnish membership is virtually assured).

I believe Swedish/Finnish membership has been officially accepted by NATO. All that remains is collecting the official ratifications from the rest of NATO. (Currently, 8 of the 30 member states have yet to ratify it.)

See my other comments addressing your point. And I of course agree, to some extent this backfired. But I am not sure that Russia would not still consider this a win overall. Not all neighbors are equal if you take things like geography into account, so I would not rule out the possibility that Sweden and Finnland were factored in.

I agree that Ukraine was not going to join NATO in March 2022 ; however, it can completely be assumed that the window of "attacking Ukraine before it joins NATO" was only going to narrow.

And, given the importance of Russian oil and gas in the post-covid recovery period, the predictable reduction in nuclear capacity in France and Germany, the plausible lack of support from EU population and German industry for a cold winter, Putin's aging, etc... It might just be that the timing felt "as good as it will ever be".

Also, being on the "initiative" side gives your more positive outcomes. Best case was a flash invasion of Kiyv with public support. Next best case, a flash invasion without public support. That didn't pan out, but their next option is not terrible : grab as much territory as possible in Spring and Summer, then... Wait it out. General Winter will give Russia a pretty nice seat at the négociation table when EU citizens finally bail out.

Now, it's possible that we europeans stand the cold (or maybe, FSM willing, that winter is _not_ cold), that US weapons work, and that Putin contends with "I keep Crimea and some water, you join NATO, Dombass stays neutral." Sadly, that looks like the "best" plausible outcome to me - but who knows...

I still think Putin getting bumped off is a plausible outcome - either by his own FSB, elements of the Russian military, angry oil oligarchs or Ukrainian partisans with or without the help of the CIA and friends.

Whether that will count as a good outcome really depends on what follows: chaos and civil war could be terrible; a short caretaker government followed by the election of Alexei Navalny might be the best possible result.

Putin is certainly far from the ideal leader but it is probably safe to say things could also be much worse. Leadership change in a country like Russia with so many nukes is always a bit frightening. You do not even have to look at Russia, just look at the end of Trump's presidency. I think the only thing that is certain is that interesting times are ahead.