Russia did indeed nearly make a deal with Ukraine in Istanbul before the west told Ukraine that they wouldn't get security guarantees if that happened. From that point on it became an actual war that Russia is currently winning. The fact that you think the war is about territory shows that you have absolutely no clue regarding the subject you're opining on.

Meanwhile, Russia successfully reorienting its economy away from the west shows just how irrelevant the west has become now. Russia's economy is now growing faster than any western economy. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68823399

The World Bank just reclassified Russia as a high income country https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/world-bank-country-classifications-by-income-level-for-2024-2025

I do love your cope of calling Russia subservient to China. I guess you must be projecting the status of Canada regarding the US here.

Admittedly, as the article is more than 2.5 years old, battlefield conditions changed and there’ll likely be more territorial concessions but the basic shape of the agreememnt is similar.)

And how did they change in the completely opposite direction of what western media was prediction genius?

But if you want to pretend that the Ukraine debacle has been the glorious adventure outlined above, well, I guess enough RT, or a childish refusal to acknowledge being wrong on the internet, will do that to someone.

It's quite clear that the war in Ukraine showed that NATO is impotent, that Russia is able to not only survive, but actually grow its economy without the west, it massively increased Chinese geopolitical position, strengthened BRICS, and kicked off dedollarization. This is precisely the scenario above. I guess uncritically guzzling western propaganda or a childish refusal to acknowledge being wrong on the internet, will do that to someone.