Both can be true: Russia can lack numbers to make a strategic breakthrough, and Ukraine can simultaneously not be able to field enough materiel to be able to recapture their losses.

IMO the most likely outcome is a stalemate that turns into de jure conquest of the territory Russia has captured and it turns into a cold (or at least cooler) war.

Okay, I’ll bite. What does “a Hobbit” mean as a unit of measurement?

At a guess, it’s a correlation between the Empire having it’s head in the sand about it’s gradual collapse, and the enshittification of Reddit over the trust thermocline.

Edit: sorry, I thought you said you were familiar with the source. In Foundation there’s a Galactic Empire which culturally and technologically stagnates to the point that the outer provinces break away, leading to the slow but inevitable collapse of the Empire. A breakaway faction (the Foundation) seeks to preserve the knowledge and technology of the Empire to reduce the duration of “barbarism” until a new Empire can form.