"Not long ago I said we'd grind [Ukraine] down - now it looks like we'll finish them off," Putin told submariners.

What kind of a leader talks about grinding an enemy down at the cost of the lives of conscripts. "We'll just keep throwing conscripts at them and they'll give up eventually".

The comments about "only" 180k soldiers are also telling. He thinks of the numbers like money, as in you spend the soldiers and they're gone.

I presume troops from UK and France would be a deterrent, and a profound one at that.