From a New York Times story by Thomas E. Ricks headlined “Reading the Tea Leaves on the End of the War in Ukraine”:

The Russian invasion of Ukraine that began in February last year has led to the biggest war in Europe in many generations. Even before the Wagner Group — the 50,000-strong paramilitary force that had been fighting alongside Russian soldiers — seized control of military sites in the southwestern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don last week, with the apparent aim of toppling Moscow’s military command, the incursion into Ukraine looked like a major failure for its instigator, President Vladimir Putin.