Agreed 100%

Aaaages ago I read a Rand Corp analysis (think it had to do with vietnam, so that dates it). As I remember, they stated the requirement to hold an area with a mostly cooperative population, the requirement was 200 (might have been 20) soldiers per 1000 pop.

Looking at the population of Ukraine (43 mil), and using the lower number, I have to wonder if Russia has the number of soldiers to do this without completely stripping their other defenses. And that was for a mostly cooperative population. So, yeah, meat grinder.

Also nukes - which I assume is why we're dancing around what kind of support we can give. My major concern is a mismatch between what we'd consider a legitimate causus belli and what would motivate Putin to go nuclear.