Russia has a vast array of forces it could unleash on Ukraine, but for whatever idiotic reason they have decided to use this small piecemeal force and constant artillery barrage to methodically grind down the UAF skilled soldiers, which it has been doing very effectively.
It has some very nasty non nuclear weapons that i have yet to see being used, some others which have been used very rarely, and it has an absolute butt load of guided missiles with very potent warheads left over from the Cold War with which it could completely cripple the entire country of Ukraine in terms of its infrastructure, to its economy and supply chains, all the way to political annihilation. It has a whole army sitting in Belarus on vacation or something who knows what they are doing, and could open several new large scale operations on different fronts and launch a massive invasion, one which the current UAF would stand zero chance of defending in its current exhausted form. An actual long term siege of Kiev would be hard to deal with. There would be casualties incurred, these are called expected losses, but the vast majority of them will be Ukrainians sent to be slaughtered.
Don't forget small tactical nukes which Russian brass believe are the direction for de-escalation during war. They believe there would be manageable blow back in using these weapons, and i honestly believe they are correct in their calculation.
Multiple Russian officials have said if western long range weapons are used on Russian territory, they will escalate and so far they haven't bluffed. The only questions are what of those above would they escalate with and where? Attacking Russian territory with these weapons also has the consequence of further galvanizing Russian people behind Putin, by proving everything him and his officials have been saying as correct, exactly the opposite of what you are saying it would do. Do you think someone from Belgorod region is saying Russia should surrender, or demanding Russia crush the country responsible for killing their friends and family? Those attacks which were already done pushed people behind Putin even more.
We always try to use the logic of our own nations and our own experiences and apply them to the way average Russians think, that's our biggest error and why we are so easily fooled by our own liars in chiefs and our state controlled MSM. We have not experienced the suffering Russians have in the last century alone, and we have never experienced a leader who dragged our people and our nation out of ashes and rebuilt it from nothing. Not only that, they didnt erase the suffering and the great achievements from the history they teach their children.
