They need it to seem like that. Russia mistook the illusion for a reality, and is now stuck in a war of attrition with an economy that, on paper, is only a tenth of their own, and which is being supported by the international equivalent of loose change.

When Putin realised that, his body language changed: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-war-putin-neumann-int...

(Oh how hyperbolic headlines are…)