There were similar levels of fear and worry when Russia was amassing troops just under the border ahead of their “3-day special operation”. But the truth of the matter is that Russia has shown itself to be a lot weaker as a military force than they purported themselves to be.

Their internal war-time economy is anyway starting to flounder as the >1.5K daily casualties they are amassing is having a noticeable impact on not only military production, but also civilian and agricultural. (‘ Russia economy crumbling with food prices skyrocketing as Putin’s problems mount’ - Express.co.uk).

They are relying heavily on Iran, China and NK to supplement their falling arms production; and are now also needing to supplement their conscript forces with NK forces.

Russia has continually been over-estimated, but don’t doubt for a second that it is being cooked like a frog in a boiling pot in a proxy-war solely using Ukrainian forces.

In the event of a handful of allied European nations joining the war to aid Ukraine, Russia would be expelled from the region quite quickly - but at the cost of additional human lives, which is why the escalations have been so slow.