The Russian MoD briefing today, from which I posted their official war map, included the claim that everything is going to plan because Russia only ever intended to seize the rest of Donestk and Luhansk - the only territory they're having much success in.

I suspect this is a face-saving gesture, for all the reasons covered in the thread. But I can acknowledge the possibility of branching plans in Russian stretegy. Even so, for an opportunist like Putin the dream of taking the whole country was at the forefront, and the current disposition is as near to total failure as Russian planners could have envisioned.

In the plausible case that Russia contests over the currently-occupied territory for months to come, the time is ripe for NATO to send non-Soviet equipment and train Ukrainian operators on it. A couple months' training will be an adequate start for Ukraine on many systems; old Cold War-era stocks can't hold out forever.