Hi Deskdiary
I have absolutely no idea.
The smart thing for Putin to have done - perhaps - would have been to announce that he had "achieved his military objectives" round about the time Sieverodonetsk and Lysychansk fell a while back, in other words when Russia was at just about the limit of its gains. Doing that he may have been able to paint Ukraine as the aggressor and maybe just about enough of the international coalition would have tried to persuade Zelensky to sue for peace. Even as I write that tho it doesn't sound all that convincing and in any case how was he to know that would probably be as good as it got.
As it is, he's now largely in retreat: its hard to see how he could turn the tide back, even to enable him just to take all of Donbass. Ukraine has shown itself to be better and smarter led, better motivated and crucially now better equipped and with fresh UK-trained recruits arriving all the time.
He seems to be throwing the kitchen sink at defending Kherson: if he loses that I suspect not only is Russia's "special operation" doomed but almost certainly so is he.
Still he ploughs on regardless, probably because he has no choice. Maybe hoping that somehow his engineered energy crisis will cause Ukraine's allies to crack. Increasingly, tho Russian telegram channels are turning on their own military and on him.
The pressure is also on Ukraine to advance before winter sets in, but they do have a big advantage their as their troops are so much better prepared and looked after it seems.
There are so many videos now of locals in villages and towns in SE Kharkiv tearfully greeting Ukraining troops: there's a great one in the liberated town of Balakliya, where a group of Russian-speaking ladies are hugging a few Ukrainian-speaking soldiers, inviting them in for pancakes :-)
Of course, there is probably still a long, hard road ahead.
Staggering to think how many tens of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians have perished in a thoroughly unecessary and wicked war.