In high school many moons ago, I had a history/economics teacher who did a Master's thesis on the (original) Crimean War. He predicted in ~1995 that post-Soviet Russia would annex Crimea and it would lead to another regional war.

Unfortunately, the Crimean War was the Russian Empire's Afghanistan/Vietnam War. One can only hope that history repeats itself because the only workable offramp is one were Russia concedes. That may take months to years to never.

There's not-dissimilar cases moving thru American courts.