The EU's self-inflicted energy crisis will not resolve itself. Having cut itself of from Russian energy Europe needs new supplies of cheap and plentiful energy for their industries. None of the available alternatives fills these needs. LNG will always be significantly more recipients than pipeline gas and the supply and infrastructure to replace the Russian supplies simply doesn't exist.

Maybe Europe will be able to build the necessary LNG infrastructure in the coming decade but they are not the only ones building. Russia is investing heavily in pipelines to supply Asian markets so even in a best case scenario for Europe, their industry will have access to expensive LNG (paid in dollars) while Asian industry will have access to cheap Russian pipeline gas paid in national currencies. Ultimately Asian industry is going to be much more competitive then European because of this.

How is the energy crisis going to get resolved?

Most of money the West spends in military aid ends in the pockets of their own weapon manufacturers who will only lobby to keep the war going. Western politicians have no reason to stop supporting the war since it costs them nothing but pennies and Ukrainian lives.

The first part is true, but the latter may not be. Ukraine's economy is currently being kept afloat by Western money; Ukraine's economy cannot handle the strain alone. If sufficient hardship befalls Europe and America then there will be cuts. Additionally, Europe's weapons are almost entirely depleted now, leaving just America supporting NATO. I think the bet here is that America's equipment is so specialized for non-peer warfare that they can't be used as effectively in near-peer warfare. That's not to say it can't cause problems, it's just to say that it can be eventually overcome.

Even if Ukrainian casulties are 20 times the official numbers this is still nothing compared to WW2 numbers. They aren’t going to run out of potential soldiers for decades.

This is true if you just punch the male (or total) population of Ukraine into your calculator, but you need people doing things in your country other than being soldiers, and eventually morale will deplete sufficiently that people lose the will to fight. But I agree that this war will go on for years if we just project current casualty rates into the future, so eventually Russia will need to do something other than just sit back and bombard Ukraine with artillery. That might not be until winter, or after winter, or a year from now, but Russia can't just... not advance forever.

The side effects of the war ares causing economic issues for the West for sure but how long will this recession last? The econemy and energy crisis is gonna get resolved eventually.

"eventually" could be several years. Belgium's PM has said that Europe needs to prepare for 5-10 difficult winters. And Europe's economy is actively deindustrializing with the lack of cheap Russian gas and that's not something you can just reverse; that industry will go to Asia and, if energy costs remain significantly elevated, European industry simply won't be competitive. The invisible hand of the market is spanking Europe right now.

Not concern trolling or anything, I just don’t see how Russia plans to ever permanently pacify these regions.

No worries, these are good questions, and none of truly know what's going to happen. I personally think that Russia's strategy will continue to work on the short and medium terms but doesn't seem sustainable on the long term. Russia has done a lot of damage to Ukraine's ability to fight back through a few months of constant artillery barrages, but NATO is filling in those gaps, so the net result is rather unimpressive if you add it all up together.

I think the winter months will significantly impede Ukraine's ability to attack, but we still have a couple months to go until it starts getting really cold, and so if Ukraine can make sufficient territorial gains then Russia might just spend winter getting those back and be right back to August's map come spring.

It's possible that these offensives are desperation moves and that Ukraine's ability to fight back will soon be nullified, but again, NATO is filling in the gaps, so that hope is becoming ever less convincingly.

So yeah, at some point Russia will either need to commit significantly more forces, or start striking more targets like railways and permanently disabling transportation of military equipment to the front lines, or just outright declare war.

Outwardly, the strangest thing about Russia in this war is all the ways they could just end Ukraine's ability to function as a nation if they decided to strike all the power plants and transformers instead of just the transmission towers or whatever they're hitting, or train stations, or water pumping stations, and everything else. That latent but unused ability is the main reason why Russia is still more likely to win this war than Ukraine is, as Ukraine doesn't have that same ability, but it's only useful if it's actually used at some point. Being like "Oh, we could get ya! We could hit your infrastructure! We could stop you in your tracks! Ooo, don't piss us off!" is great and fine but eventually you'll end up at the border of Crimea and be like "Oh. Huh. Shit."

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I don't really see the war being a material net benefit for Russian workers, not within a time frame we can reasonably speculate on. I guess this whole thing is a victory of the Russian military and intelligence over the billionaire "oligarchs", most of which would have preferred to just make money, and maybe that's good? Looks like a lateral move to me.

I don't know if Europe can deal with the energy crisis and the existing social and economic issues. But the Atlanticist politicians will try to cut all ties to Russia, even if a million have to freeze, and I don't think they would dare to even try that without the war. Full impoverishment and deindustrialisation of Western Europe isn't in Russia's rational interest either, but that's what they might get.

How the war itself goes seems tertiary to me aside from the immense human suffering of course.

At least it's benefitting China which is nice.