People sometimes ask why Europe and the US didn't go big on kicking Russia out of Ukraine in 2022.
They were afraid to win against Russia because they thought Putin might go nuclear. They were also afraid to lose Ukraine to Russia because Moldova would quickly follow and then there would be an absolute panic as Russian expansion came knocking on NATO's door. So, they did what politicians do when they don't know what to do: they kicked the can down the road.
They kept the war going. If Ukraine started winning too much, they scaled back their support. If Ukraine started losing too much, they scaled up their support. They thus condemned Ukraine to endless bleeding as their buffer against Russia. But there is a limit to how much Ukraine can bleed out. If nothing changed, Russia would eventually win by attrition.
What changed: far right politicians in the US and Europe are, long story short, on Russia's side, and are seeking to accelerate the fall of Ukraine.
George Kennan's assessment of the USSR long ago rings true for Putin's Russia: "impervious to logic of reason, highly sensitive to logic of force." The west overthought the situation, proved *unwilling* to apply full force to it, and that's all she wrote. Everything else is rhetorical.