This. Losing to Ukraine is a massive humiliation. Losing to NATO is “fair” in their eyes. Even now, pro-Russian sources refuse to believe the current drone swarms and highly advanced deep strike drones wrecking havoc on Russian oil infrastructure (see the official state of emergency declared in Crimea and fuel shortages in other regions) are caused by Ukrainian drones. They keep making up some sore loser nonsense about these being NATO drones or some clever trick like drones released from trucks inside Russia. Meanwhile even the Pentagon is buying Ukrainian made drones: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/ukraine-a...