You are right on that one. But only as far as Putin thinks the same way. Does he?

"If Ukrainian resistance inflicts any pain to the Russian occupiers, it is not hard to guess that Russia will try to disable the source of that help. In short, it will not take long, before the neighboring NATO countries get pulled into the conflict. That will trigger NATO's Article 5, which requires all members to stand behind the one attacked."

The above is a quote from my article: "How could we end the war in Ukraine tomorrow?"

BTW, you know Russia and I strongly recommend your article to Medium readers.