Russia is incapable of identifying transports from NATO countries and eliminating them when they enter Ukraine. It's an obvious and blatant shortcoming of military capabilities and military capabilities alone. Successful interdiction of those transports would severely limit the ability of NATO to provide aid at minimal cost to Russia in military terms. It is therefore a highly desirable solution in political terms but Russia is simply incapable of it.
If you think it is possible for a military to completely cover the supply lines along such a long border such as that between NATO & Ukraine just from the air using the airforce then you have no idea what you are talking. That is just not possible, take Gaza for example, even though Israel has Gaza under a strict blockade yet Iran sometimes still finds ways to smuggle weapons to Gaza using that tiny border between Egypt & Gaza. If Iran can pull that off against Israel with such a small border using tunnels then I'm sure NATO can do much more than that with the long border they have with Ukraine.
Russia invaded with its entire Ground Force, VDV and Naval Infantry. It attacked Kiyv with the express purpose of instituting regime change as stated by Putin in his address. The formations were understaffed because conscripts couldn't be used legally but even so mobilization would give Ukraine time and excuse to mobilize which it did after invasion began
You are contradicting yourself, you can't call it the "entire ground force" and at the same time call it understaffed, if it's "understaffed" then it's not the "enitre ground force" they used just 200k soldiers in the invasion instead of 500k or 600k. Legality is not an issue, Putin is not just some random guy in Russia, he is the president. he and his party determine what's legal and what isn't.
And regarding the negotiations, Russia was demanding negotiations for a neutral Ukraine not just after the war began but even before the start of the war, did you forget it or something? Few months before the war began every day the Russians would demand Ukraine and the west to meet with the Russians and sign a deal that guarantess Ukrainian neutrality, they demanded this kind of a deal to the very last day before the war started.
The forces that contributes most to the survival of SAR were - ironically - the western intervention forces and Kurds. The Peshmerga bore the brunt of fighting in the pivotal and most important battle over Mosul a (2m+ metro) and ISIL's main support centre. Without that nothing else would play out in the remaining territory of Syria as it did.
I said Russia helped turn the tide of war against FSA/AlQaeda, I never mentioned ISIS.
FSA is Jaish Al-Islam, Ahrar Al-Sham, the Southern front etc.. AlQaeda called themselves Alnusra front. The US and the Kurds didn't help in any way in defeating these groups, if anything the US actually was the main backer of such groups against the Syrian military with ATGMs and MANPADs
The only time the YPG clashed with the FSA was in northwestern Syria in which the Kurds were crushed.
The FSA/AlQaeda existed mainly in Damascus, in Southern Syria and north western Syria, before the Russian airforce intervened the Syrian military was rapidly losing ground in Idlib endangering Latakia & Tartus. If it wasn't for the Russian airforce the Syrian military would have already been finished and Damascus would have been ruled by a Taliban like government.
In any case I only mentioned Syria as an example of the perfomance of the Russian airforce but I feel like this is going quite off topic.
