People, and importantly western leadership, absolutely thought they could force a regime change in Russia when the war started. For example, recall all the whole rouble will be rubble talk. The plan was for the west to isolate Russia economically using sanctions and intimidate other countries to stop trading with Russia. Russian economy was supposed to collapse as a result, and people were gonna overthrow the government.

This is why Europe went all in on the whole thing, they thought they’re gonna ride it out for a few months and then the west would get to put in a compliant regime in Russia like they did in Ukraine. After that, everything would get back to business as usual, and the regime would start selling off Russia to western companies the way Ukraine is currently being sold off.

Of course that’s not how it went, and now we're seeing a narrative shift because it's becoming clear that the west failed to break Russia economically. Not only that, but Russia is emerging more assertive and has the backing of the Global South. This is the worst possible outcome for the west, and Europe in particular.