That very much depends on what you mean by "worked". And it's not like Western militaries are lacking the physical means to engage in heavier and more damaging attacks; they just have viable alternatives that they prefer.
1) Putin has conquered more population than he lost (even just counting fighting age men)
2) Putin has conquered more money/value/resources than he lost due to the conflict (by a factor of 10, maybe 100)
3) Even Ukraine's European allies seem to agree that Putin will get a ceasefire and sanctions relief where he gets to keep what he conquered
It's true that Russia did not achieve it's war goals (destruction or total control of Ukraine, and let's just not talk about the outright embarrassing "in 3 days" part), but they got quite a bit. Perhaps even more important, they got more than enough to make the conflict, at least potentially, a net positive for Putin.
Putin has conquered more population than he lost (even just counting fighting age men)
What a weird metric. More civilians subjugated than soldiers lost?
it's war goals (destruction or total control of Ukraine
Russia wants to destroy the Ukrainian cultural identity. It's cultural genocide, and it's been a goal of theirs for hundreds of years. This is why they steal Ukrainian children and ship them off to be adopted in Russia.
I agree it's weird. But it's the metric, I think, that most determines if Putin can just start another war in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years. That's my reason for why it's important. It determines the next phase of the war.
