The Russian army will never be defeated in one fell swing, and it is because Russia has nukes. The upsides and downsides of Russia today.

That is the primary reason why the west does not want Russia to lose completely at once, because if Russia loses that badly at once they are sure to use nukes in a we die together pact.

Instead what the west wants is to weaken Russian enough from the inside over time that the Russian state implodes internally. Allowing for the blame for the Russian collapse to not fall unto the west as the only cause, thus far lowering the chances of getting nuked as an outside enemy.

This is the reason while the Ukrainian troops are no being supplied with enough technological advantages to defeat Russia unconditionally, they are still being provided with enough resources and intel to bomb out and destroy high value Russian resources while both the nation states are stuck in the meat grinder war.

Russia will not fail due to the current war however. Here are the reasons why:

1. Russia has enough poor people in neighboring countries to replace the population losses by taking in immigrants from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Even if Russia's population losses in the current war went as high as 10 million, they would be able to replace the entire population with immigration from Central Asia.

2. Russian trade cannot be destroyed in current century. The reason for this is simple, Russia has ever increasing trade with two major powers of the 21st century, India and China, which makes it impossible for the Russian economy to collapse no matter how many trade restrictions the west places upon it.

3. Russian military apparatus will not collapse. While all their old soviet stocks may get destroyed over time, the Russians reportedly are more than capable of making replacement amount of tanks now, along with being supplied with the requisite artillery shells by North Korea, and further able to acquire medical supplies from China or India. Working with a distributed military supply chain allows for Russia to be powerful enough to support itself in the long run.

Thus the West fails to destroy Russia demographically, technologically, and economically. Which makes Ukraine's war against Russia a forever war where Russia only loses if the home population of Russia tires enough of the war as to turn against the Russian government, the likelihood of which happening within the decade is very low.

The only winning moves the west has are

1. End the war while giving up half of Ukraine and taking over the other remaining half of Ukraine as part of the EU.

2. Keep supplying Ukraine with ever more advanced weapons systems every year to make up for military personnel losses, and to keep doing so as long as the Ukrainian spirit doesn't not break down.

The current strategy is 2) followed by 1) when the Ukrainian spirit finally breaks.

The downside for Russia:

1. If you think Europe is being overtaken by Islam right now, it is far worse for Russia. At current rates by 2030 14-15% of Russians are going to be Muslim as all of Russia's primary immigration sources are Islamic nation states. Taking into account how well accepting immigrants from the middle east has gone for the European Union, you can probably guess why this isn't good news for Russia.

In the medium term we can probably expect Russia to break apart internally as the Islamic population share actively works to take over the nation state from the Christian Russian population groups. We can look at on the ground animosity between white Russians and Central Asians in Russia to support this claim.

2. The Russian military is codependent on supplies from outside the country. This gives up on the sovereignty of Russia and leads to Russia having lesser control of its own destiny.

3. On the economic side of things. The Russian economy is not just integrated with the Eastern economies, it is fully dependent on the Eastern economies. Russia loses power as the eastern economies would all grow at rates greater than Russia, and the Russian populace and tech and raw materials are going to become cheap supplies for nation states like India and China.

In conclusion:

Russia will not lose the Ukraine war in the sense of not taking over 1/4th to half of Ukraine at least, but the victory is going to cost Russia its independence in every way that it matters. China and India own Russia now. North Korea is equal partners. That's where Russia is right now.