would add that putin's use of soft power has been far more cost&time effective that hot conflict.

a. easy for any intelligence group to track russia's war economy for intent...but russia wants time to rebuild manpower and combat training. dropping of u.s. sanctions likely the key turning point in favor of russia for another decade.

b. installing puppets (clearly also gabbard, trump) in neighboring countries, plus information propaganda has been a homerun.
in Romania (NATO nation) where elections were voided due to russian interference, they referred to more (fake) in-country online followers than it's total population.

however, this could still be a homerun for putin, as it will give gabbard a reason to publicly declare this violates democracy and america will not back them on defense. extremely under-reported pathway.

c. in recent hot balkan conflicts, russian proxies have now been utterly destroyed 2 times by turkey, add syria for another half.
even the most ardent MAGA has to say the with help just below the level needed to win, ukraine has out-done russia on both equipment and manpower metrics.
NATO regions putin fears the most :
- turkey
- france
- nordics
- poland