The interesting part for me isn’t the pariah aspect, which is significant, but how this destroys the facade of the great Russian bear army that was created in WW2. The Cold War generated, with significant help of our own propaganda, this image that was never really tested in a large scale land war. The cracks began to really show during the Gulf War, but the failures of the equipment and tactics vs the US modern equivalent was laid at the feet of Iraqi incompetence. Now it is being tested where they chose the territory, timeline, and advisory and are being found truly lacking.
If the mythos of the Russian military and their potential military exports are dismissed, what do they truly supply the global market? At this point with how the global economy is transitioning, what is their true global export? Is rare earth metals now what makes them a country other nations will go back to trading with? At what point is the investment in rare earth mining in Africa more viable than dealing with Russia?
Without the specter of the mighty Russian bear, what is Russia really on the global stage? OPEC+ and the concerns of the Middle East now makes Russian crude exports less of a market driver. The dwindling reliance on Russian Natural Gas in Europe limits another export. In the future post-conflict what is the reasoning to consistently trade hard currency with Russia? What is a dominant export that helps turn the global market? This morphs the economics from a political necessity to a true profit narrative which significantly weakens the Russian position.