2. The West needs Russia to stay Russian.

While Russia will always want to come back to The West, The West, likewise, needs Russia to stay alive and sovereign. If Russia becomes too much weakened, then it may become unable to hold up against China's loving embrace, and this would be an unmitigated disaster for both Russia and The West. The Western oligarchy will be damned to hell before it will ever allow a single power structure to control the entire Asian continent.

To this end, it is highly unlikely that The West will ever allow Russia to truly LOSE, for to do so creates far too much risk that China will rush in to Stabilize The Situation, and they will take up all of the defensive positions and lock The West out, seizing effective control over Russia.

This dynamic creates an overarching theme for WW3 (or whatever you want to call it), Russia wants to go from being a relatively weak western-aligned country like Brazil to a relatively powerful western-aligned country like India, and do so by temporarily becoming a pariah. Whatever the pundits will say, The West is going to accept this, because Russia is not their real problem, China is.