Russia is throwing everything they have into the war with Ukraine. The Russian army is severely decimated, with units only half populated. Personnel is being reassigned from depleted units, and what little reinforcements are being deployed are untrained reserves. Ammunition is spent like it's their last stand, and Russian lives are lost in droves. While Russia can still rely on their advantage in numbers to overwhelm the Ukrainian forces, it is a losing game for them. Putin is unwilling to formally declare war and mobilise his conscript army, and with his contract soldiers now being used as cannon fodder, he is on his last legs in the fight.
Taking Sievjerodonetsk, a city of limited strategic value but symbolic importance to taking all of the Luhansk region, took a ridiculously disproportionate amount of time, effort and resources for Russia, and they are unlikely to make any significant further territorial gains. Ukraine, on the other hand, is ramping up their resistance with new weapons, and are successfully pushing back on every other front. Russia simply lacks the numbers to defend and keep the territory they have occupied, and they are vulnerable.
It will take a lot of suffering yet before he is forced to admit it, but Putin is finished.
