Coming back after much delay to finish my responses here.
- Since the failure of Ukraine's summer offensive last year, Ukraine's strategy has focused less on regaining territory and more on destroying Russia's equipment and manpower and damaging Russia's economy (with things like drone strikes on oil refineries).
To the 3rd bolded, that implies Ukraine has written off the territory they've lost or don't believe they'll ever take it back without external actors. When combined with your last statement of "they'll never be allowed in NATO with active combat on their territory" (which is the correct take), perhaps they willingly cede the territory in exchange. I don't think territory though is the Russian goal and the NATO part is more the real one. Russia's goal in my opinion is to do a version of what the U.S. did to Mexico in the Mexican-American War of Mexico at the end were still allowed to exist, but were completely dismantled from ever being allowed to form a challenge to American hegemony in the region.
I didn't mean to say Ukraine had given up on capturing territory permanently, just that they recognized they weren't in a position to take territory after the end of their last counter-offensive and before the new equipment/mobilized soldiers arrived. It's an operation shift, not a shift in strategic objectives. I disagree that Russia's goal is to keep Ukraine neutralized over territorial gains, though. This is definitely a common take in the West, but I personally have never seen any indication that Putin has decided that this is a war over alliances more than a war over territory and culture. He even famously ignored the question of NATO expansion in his interview with Tucker, even when given the most leading possible questions on it. Russia had pretty minimal reaction to Finland joining NATO, which in theory poses pretty much the same strategic threats and constraints on Russia as Ukraine joining. This is different from Georgia, where I think you're right that it was about keeping the country out of NATO, and even Ukraine 2014, which was about trying to keep Ukraine in Russia's sphere of influence and out of NATO and the EU. But if you read the most pro-war voices in Russia, they never put this conflict in terms of "keeping Ukraine neutral" or out of NATO. It's 100% "These are Russians who have lost their way, and until Russia marches on Kyiv and forces their submission, they will forever be under Ukronazi oppression."
- But bottom line, this is now a war of political will with Putin thinking he can outlast Western willingness to provide support and Ukraine thinking they can hold the line until either Russia's economy collapses (not off the table, but something that has been predicted many times with only a little to show for it) or Putin faces some sort of serious internal challenge, like we saw last year with the Wagner insurrection.
I agree with all of this with two caveats: Putin is younger than Biden or Trump, but still a full seven years beyond the life expectancy for a man in Russia. Granted, he doesn't drink and has access to the best healthcare, but that's the equivalent of either Biden or Trump being 86, so it does behoove us to have plans in place for Putin's death and not take him continuing to live for a while as a given. Also, I think all signs point to a significant power struggle after Putin's death. That's not to say there will be a coup or a civil war, but even the recent reshuffle of Belousov replacing Shoigu replacing Patrushev had the effect of leveling the playing field in a hypothetical power struggle, rather than Putin making a hand-picked successor clear. He may still do this, but there are a lot of people in Russia with troops who answer to them that may want to challenge his decision after he's gone.
from my perspective, DC is still mostly "in it to win it" for Ukraine and, I think contrary to what sometimes is claimed, would rather Ukraine defeat Russia than degrade Russia in a bloody, hot stalemate.
You'll get different answers to what victory means depending on who you ask, but victory in my mind, and in the mind of most people I work with on this, means degrading Russia's ability to fight to the point that it is dissuaded from any further military operations against Ukraine or its other neighbors. What this looks like is hard to say, but it does not look like Ukraine marching on Moscow, and Ukraine forcibly taking all the territory it has lost is basically a 1:million best case scenario for them. If you want me to name one concrete scenario of what this might look like, it would be something like Ukraine having very successful counter-offensives that cut the Crimean landbridge, trying to cut off all access to Crimea by train, car, boat, and plane over the span of several years, and then negotiating an exchange of Russian withdrawal from all or most of the Donbas in exchange for ending the Crimean blockade, recognizing Russian control over Crimea, and an end to most international sanctions against Russia. Will that happen? Probably not, but that's one "Ukraine victorious" scenario that doesn't involve a return to 2013 borders or military capabilities well above what we've seen Ukraine manage in the past. And unfortunately, you're not going to get public declarations of specific acceptable scenarios from leadership because, as Trump likes to say but not practice, you don't want to tell your enemies exactly what you're planning and what your terms are before you try to cut a deal. If Russia senses the West or Ukraine is scaling back their goals, it will show him the attrition is working and he just needs to fight another year or two before we totally give up on Ukraine.
Also, just want to say these are all great points you brought up, and just because I have different views doesn't mean I don't respect your argument or that I don't think you could end up being right. Like I said, this is stuff I just have to think about every day, and I want to be able to articulate my views as best as possible.
