I’m convinced Putin still believes he might get away with it.
With whatever he wishes to accomplish…

Why?
Because he is convinced that the only thing which might prevent him from achieving his goal is ‘the West’.
You see, he is adamant that without the ‘western influence’ he would have imposed his will upon Ukraine a very long time ago. After all, he’d already done that in Russia, didn’t he?
And the West seems to be loosing its focus….

A lot of ‘distraction’. Trump is indicted on 37 counts, mainly for mishandling highly sensitive information, while Boris Johnson quits his MP chair claiming he is the victim. ‘I did mislead the Commons but I didn’t do it on purpose’.

According to Putin’s book, there’s no difference between him and these two guys. All three of them have nothing in their mind but their own interest. In this respect, Putin is absolutely right.
What he fails to realize is that Trump being indicted and Johnson being investigated by the Commons are signs of strength. The US and Britain, respectively, seem to have came back to their senses. And started cleaning up their act.

He, Putin, also fails to realize that the Western help might come in handy. For the Ukrainians.
But what keeps them fighting is their will. Their quest for freedom!

The very same thing had happened during WWII.
The West did carry huge amounts of weaponry to the former USSR. Which weapons had helped the Red Army resist – and then defeat – Hitler’s attempt to enlarge the German Lebensraum. But without the ordinary Russians putting up with the war… all western help would have been lost!
Same thing is happening under our own eyes. The arms beefing up Ukraine’s army might come in handy but it’s the Ukrainian determination to lead their own, independent, life which will eventually douse Putin’s ambition.

One final thing.
Nazi Germany had ultimately failed because it was an ‘imperium’. A socio-political arrangement where all decisions were made in a highly centralized manner. Where mistakes accumulated and eventually made it impossible for the arrangement to survive. Because unsolved past mistakes make it impossible for a system to evolve. To solve present day challenges.

Any resemblance to what’s going on in present day Russia is nothing but yet another proof that failing to understand history forces you to repeat the lesson.