Russia had nukes and lost in Afghanistan.
That’s bc they didn’t use them. They’ve probably learned from that boondoggle. And plus it’s hard to win wars when you are a Communist country due to the lack of global funding.
Russia is capitalist now, still has trade agreements in place despite the West attempting to boycott them out of funding. Remember all that propaganda about Russian economy tanking due to not buying their oil? Never happened.
Russia’s intent certainly wont be nuclear war. They will bleed Ukraine, till the rest of the countries lose interest in defending it, and then it will immediately fall. It’ll be like Afganistan when the US pulled out, or South Vietnam when the US stopped supporting them.
The war could probably be over right now if Ukraine was denied entry into NATO and parts of Ukraine that are pro Russia were allowed to leave. But I think after the drone over the Kremlin stunt, that pissed Putin off enough that he’s going kill Zelensky first before entering into actual peace negotiations