What will happen if at the end Russia succeed in her conquest against Ukraine and take over the economy of Ukraine. That will extend the economic power of Russia no doubt and that will make Russia more powerful.
How will EU and NATO countries relate with Russia if that happens ?
The economy of Ukraine is in ruins and the number of refugees exceeded 1 million(it will grow even further).
Even if Russia occupied Ukraine,there's going to be a gorilla war.Who is going to invest and build businesses in a country,that is ruined by a war and the people are trying to escape?
Ukraine will become a huge financial burden for Russia.Putin knows that and he doesn't want to conquer Ukraine.He wants to establish a puppet government and a guarantee that Ukraine will never become a member of NATO.
The economy of Russia cannot grow under severe western sanctions.
"Guerilla war" not gorilla lol. And his idea is not to put puppet leader there, his idea is to create a buffer zone even if Ukraine is accepted to EU. Meaning if he gets those first two lands, which he invaded fairly easily, that means there will be a buffer zone. He could put all the military a bit further up thanks to those lands, make those lands a "great" place to live, and basically use those places as a buffer zone that would have military AND civilians so that if Europe ever wants to attack, they will first need to kill those people and fight those armies. Meanwhile Russia could get ready for anything else, like nukes.
So, all of this is actually for that two pieces of land, and he doesn't care about the rest, he does attack the rest, but just to say "we will back down to just those two cities".