Even intermediate goals are unattainable for Russia - The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal has written about this. 

Ukraine's rout of Russian troops from their hard-won positions over the weekend shattered Moscow's military objectives, undermining its carefully crafted plan and forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to grapple with who is to blame and what to do about it.

Throughout Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has stood firmly by its line that the operation was unfolding according to plan, despite setbacks and failures. Moscow’s propagandists have used their platforms on state television to argue that Mr. Putin’s military objectives—to topple Kyiv’s pro-Western government and pull Ukraine back under Russia’s influence—are still on track.

But Russia’s chaotic retreat from strongholds in northeastern Ukraine, cities and towns it took months to capture, has left Moscow’s political and military leadership struggling to absorb the scale of the losses, according to analysts who follow domestic Russian politics - The Wall Street Journal writes. 

“In Moscow, they are struggling for a way of understanding what is going on right now and a narrative to explain this even to themselves, let alone the public,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. 

The Russian troop withdrawal from Izyum, in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, however, means Moscow has lost the most important potential launchpad from which to attack parts of Donbas still under Ukrainian control - The Wall Street Journal writes. 

“Even the interim second-order goals that Russia had set itself, to absorb Donetsk and Luhansk, those are out of reach,” said Mr. Gould-Davies, a former British diplomat in Russia and Belarus. “The Kremlin now faces the hardest choices it has in the war,” he said. “Time is not on their side.”