Unfortunately, RU's prospects are looking up to a degree.
Somewhat so for long-term resilience in the UA conflict, and also as a plausible threat to certain other east European countries, especially EE/LV/LT.
The unexpected twist (to me anyway) is that the RU people seem to have just gone along with converting the country into a war economy...
So we'd be looking at a somewhat dysfunctional, second-world economy spending 10+ % of GDP on combat power vs. some enlightened, somewhat more functional socialist utopias spending 1.2% of *their* GDP on said combat power.
Also RU has now developed a combat-experienced, combat-hardened cadre of soldiers. For those not aware, brutal conflicts are especially good at distilling out highly competent warriors... those who survive their early inexperience mostly keep surviving, and getting better.
Flip side of that is that the Ukrainians are probably the most competent EU-aligned military right now, along with PL (which has remained deeply suspicious of RU since 1989). While other EU militaries are staffed with conscripts obligated for a few months (but with labor union rules!).
Where RU wised up was with their own conscription... drafting youth to go die in a foreign war meat grinder is bad local politics. They still have mandatory national service (always have), but the invol conscripts are used in support roles away from the front lines while they now recruit volunteers (with money) for the combat part.
But the big thing still going against RU is massive attrition, at some point the tyranny of math will make future adventures untenable... might almost be better to just continue paying UA to keep attriting fighting-age russians for a while longer
