The same way North Korea celebrates their "Victory" over the United States. It's easy to present whatever narrative you want when you can simply have dissenters shot.
The many Russian apologists in the west. In a few years they'd be proudly proclaiming how Russia "crushed" NATO.Who would believe them?
If Putin has an inch of Ukrainian land he didn't start with he will consider it a victory. Money, armaments, and especially Russian lives are meaningless to him. His personal power is all that matters.If the war ended now, even with the best possible outcome, Russia would still be humbled and defeated.
Poor Russia! Always the victim!Of course, nobody expected this, everyone thought Russia would steamroll Ukraine and so prepared for that eventuality. Pushing against Russia much harder than it seems was necessary. Which is why Russia continues.
The west doesn't want to humble Russia, they want to completely humiliate Russia and worse.
If you want to invade another country, commit war crimes as your main military tactic, snatch millions of people for slave labor, and your stormtroopers proudly boast of raping toddlers, you should damn well expect the civilized world will push back hard against you.
No, delicately coddling Russia's ego is not more important than preventing them from waging wars of conquest whenever the opportunity arises. Imagine if this was 1945 and you argued we needed to let the Nazis save face. Or that Japan should be allowed to keep the parts of China it held, to hell with what the Chinese wanted.That approach is dangerous, not only because it escalates the current conflict, but because even if the west were to achieve its goals it would only feed revanchism in Russia and eventually a potentially greater war. There is, afterall, the Versailles precedent.