Russia is not fighting for land.
yes and no.... modern russia has no real source of national unity or pride that's not over a hundred years old.... so just the size of the country is one of the few morsels they latch on to.... 'russia... it's really, really big!!!!' (kind of pathetic....)
what the government really wants (as far as can be discerned) is a new national story and it's settled on 'we are a great empire'... which, apart from being laughably untrue, is a retarded goal in the modern world.
the real problem is that russians spend so much time trying to justify their rotten country that they're not very mentally..... agile (and their terrible socio-economic system punishes independent creative thought).
putain really thought russia would be welcomed and after they killed a few tens of thousands of high profile Ukrainians the rest would settle into placid apathy (like most russians)
they still don't have a plan b and are now just playing for time and hoping Trump will save them (openly, they say that on russian state tv)...