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>However, adding new members requires unanimous consent from all existing members, so it's not guaranteed to be smooth sailing. I highly doubt that any of NATO's members will veto an application from Finland (or Sweden).
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But will Russia really win? As of the last that I saw, Ukraine was doing remarkably well in getting Russian forces to pull back from many positions they initially captured, and what they have captured has cost them considerably. A German invasion of Poland this is definitely not in terms of agility. It's more like Italy's invasion of Greece, but without a bigger power to step in and take the reins. Putin can try other means of pressure, or go all out, but so far, the former isn't very visible and the latter will prove much costlier, even if he somehow takes a majority percentage of Ukraine. In other words, even if he did pull off exactly that, what then? How much would it cost to continuously occupy a country of 48 million largely hostile people? Remember what the U.S. occupation of Iraq cost? For how long could the 10x smaller Russian economy sustain anything close to such an expense bill while maintaining a friendly puppet regime, let alone directly occupying territory?