The best plan to prevent Russia from winning would be to cut off Russia's oil revenue. Fossil fuel exports are the only way that Russia can sustain their war effort. First, other European countries need to get serious and stop buying from Russia. Second, give Ukraine enough long range missiles to wreck Russia's fossil fuel infrastructure: pipelines, tank farms, refineries, ports, etc. Russia was heavily dependent on foreign technical experts to maintain that infrastructure and has little capacity to do so on their own.
This can be done with very little US funding. And sharing intelligence with Ukraine literally costs us nothing.
Turning oil into cryptocurrency requires electrical power plants and related infrastructure. Russia has very limited industrial capacity to build this stuff anymore. They're still heavily dependent on pre-1991 industrial infrastructure. I think most people don't realize how weak Russia really is.
You're right. How can any state with nuke-backed right to issue ultimatums slowly get weakened like that? If Russia states limits, and convinces U.S. that they will launch if the limits are crossed, and these limits are within the threat budget of Russia, can they not make U.S. agree to things (and vice versa)?
This can be done with very little US funding. And sharing intelligence with Ukraine literally costs us nothing.