I don't think Russia cares about "wins" in the view of the West at this point. Nor is this a 4d chess game about trolling the West. This was a wet dream of empire that turned into a nightmare.
They miscalculated willingness of the West to support Ukraine. East Europe has been triggered and angrily pointed fingers at Germany in particular because we always knew Russia is weird and sus, yet the West generally ignored we as smaller, retarded brothers that cannot into politics. So Russia likely assumed that only the East would cry about it, and the East has zero military power and no influence in NATO and EU, so yeah.
There's also the narrative of the decadent West which is based on a core of truth, but the rot is not yet terminal and Russia just got drunk on its own amplification of the situation.
Regardless, this is very real and very dangerous, Russia is caught in a no exit situation, more precisely the regime is caught in a trap. Putin cannot make peace. Cannot negotiate. Only path is to win in some way, which must necessarily include Crimea and the East Ukraine, at minimum.
The potential paths of exit IMO:
- Ukraine gives up/regime change (unlikely now), peace treaty with regions given to Russia for peace. Would require Ukraine to stop fighting, very unlikely, they're rather angry and set to go to the end, in average
- Russia regime change, coup, revolution, peace, retreat, return of territories, Ukraine will have to guarantee Russian minority safety, will likely need UN peace keeping mission in the conflict areas
- escalation to world war through some incident involving NATO state, nuclear or not.
- protracted war for decade+ with both sides getting tired and depleted, periodic flareups on the borders, partisan warfare etc. Would allow Putin to save face somewhat. Economic downfall would be severe
