A very weird thing to say, given Russia's humiliating defeat (in terms of the objectives it believed it would surely and painlessly achieve) in 2022.

I suspect you are parroting whatever NATO media told you.

Yeah, yeah.

NATO+ countries aren't fighting him, they are using Ukraine as a proxy, while Vlad is fighting with his own army. NATO has been waiting nearly 80 years to attack Russia directly. They very motivated to make sure that Vlad continues making errors. As such, the longer this war takes, the better for NATO. And, unfortunately, the worse for Ukraine.

I think data collection is for sure one aspect, but I think Russian casualties is the largest motivator

In what way would having the whole of Ukraine annexed like Crimea be better for Ukraine?

It was not said that Ukraine would be better off it it stopped fighting. Only that Ukraine will be worse off the longer the war takes.

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2023/09/what-ukraines-...

Additionally, Iran claims that Israel did not intercept any of the hypersonic missiles they fired at Israel.

NATO does not possess any hypersonic missiles. Some people might say that NATO is keeping them secret, but that makes no sense. Nations exhibit their technologies as a deterrent.

From the theinteldrop link: "several sources within the Russian military and defense industry told the newspaper Izvestia on Saturday"

From the sputnikglobe link: "Moscow-based military expert Alexey Leonkov told Sputnik"

These newer companies (Anduril, Skydio, etc.) do it for a few reasons. Some are obvious: they get paid and their systems have a chance at influencing real-world events that the leadership & rank-and-file employees might care about personally.

But from a pure product development perspective, fielding these systems is a valuable test opportunity. You've built a great drone but you're not sure how it'll perform in a GPS-denied environment with S-band radio completely unusable? Russian Electronic Warfare teams are happy to curate that environment for you.

[0] https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2024-01-08...