. . . Putin could still choose to make a desert and call it peace.
That's kind of what they've been trying to do - the intial Russian strategy was "walk in, take over, and set up a puppet government." Thanks to the ungrateful Ukrainians, that didn't work out so well.
So the updated strategy was "Bomb and shell the crap out of everything, then move in to occupy the rubble." This had some initial success - they HAVE occupied a big chunk of Ukraine - but again, thanks to the uncooperative Ukrainians, this isn't working all that well, either.
I wonder how much actual unrest there is in Russia. Some stories say people who were taken into custody for protesting are being handed summonses for military service, Russian airlines have been ordered not to sell tickets to men of military age to fly out of the country, and an outbound traffic backup 20 miles long has been seen at the Finnish border. Other people are simply walking out to countries that have lenient entry requirements for Russian citizens. Considering how tightly Russian media is controlled, I suspect things inside Russia are worse than we hear. How harshly the state security services ultimately behave towards the Russian people remains to be seen. When the USSR was coming apart, I remember that the military and even the KGB didn't do what the leadership wanted. I've no idea what would happen today inside Russia if internal dissent really became significant.
We have more trans in high command positions than the Chinese and our troops have undergone intense sensitivity training. The Chinese don't stand a chance.
Diversity is strength - we hear it all the time. The Chinese leadership - political
and military - are all Chinese. And probably
straight Chinese besides. No question, they'd be toast in any conflict.