I just can't see how Russia will be able to seal the huge border with Poland against weapon & fighters smuggling. Assuming Ukraine could even be fully occupied, the insurgency could make the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan look like a cakewalk.
We still don't know the game plan. But several Russian opposition politicians mentioned the possibility to simply break Ukraine into pieces.
From Putin's own mouth we know that a) he does not consider Ukraine to be a country but an artificial construct b) he considers Ukrainians to be part of Rus people like Russians and Bielorussians.
He also said he would not affect Ukraine's territorial integrity. But he wants them to recognize Crimea is part of RF.
This would mean a de facto vassalization of Ukraine. But who knows.
Once Ukraine is absorbed into Russia's sphere of influence or absorbed into Russia proper, i hazard a guess nations immediately bordering the newly enlarged Russosphere might end up being nicer to Russia or stringently neutral as Finland was for the duration of the Cold War.
You ignore Finland's history before the Cold War. They fought two wars with the Soviet Union in late 1930s-1940s. I have also seen a lot of comments in Russia like those below:
The RUSSTRAT Institute for International Political and Economic Strategies recalled that Finland ceased to be part of the Russian Empire as the Grand Duchy of Finland and gained independence only in 1917, and the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Soviet Republic was the first to recognize the country. It, like Ukraine, is a former fragment of Russia - it received its own statehood as a result of its collapse.
As experts noted, all countries neighboring the Russian Federation should remember the words of Vladimir Putin : "We will never agree with only one thing: for someone to allow themselves to use Russia's generous gifts to harm the Russian Federation itself."
Helsinki and Stockholm must clearly understand that Moscow will never agree that the territories of Finland and Sweden be used to deploy US and NATO military infrastructure, as well as to deploy missile strike systems. Preserving the non-bloc status of these countries and refusing close cooperation with the US and NATO is the key to their independence and stable development, RUSSTRAT stressed.
With regards to Germany. I have to remind you of two things. Stalin proposed to make Germany a unified neutral country after WW2. The US refused. After Stalin died Beria proposed much the same. The US again refused.
And the message to Russia that "you went to war to avoid new NATO members and that is exactly what happens due to your actions" is pretty enticing as a political signal for NATO and the West right now. Might even be seen as a win.
It mostly depends whether the West (especially the US) wants to de-escalate things or not.
Right... so what happened after the Russian war with Georgia? Do you think Finland physically being in NATO would change things?
So you know where is most of the population of Finland, or how much population it has? I will give some hints. 1/8th the population of Ukraine and they nearly all live in the South.
No the only solution to stop this insanity is to put the INF Treaty back into force. They will also have to stop NATO troop deployments and bases in either the Baltics or Finland. It is rather curious that Europe publicly protested in favor of the INF Treaty back then but now just let the US drop the treaty unilaterally. It would also be nice to get the Treaty on Conventional Forces of Europe back into actual practice but I doubt this will happen. It might already be too late to do this.