One can never completely be, an objective analyst. It's an ideal. One works to achieve that ideal because of this. If Mearsheimer is 110% a Putin shill. If he receives payments. Talks to Putin on a burner phone every day. Share a hot tub together when both are in Turkey. It doesn't change the possibility that the claim that the war will be "won" on the attrition of soldiers and artillery shells might turn out to be correct.

Perhaps when the global recession hits the West in a powerful way it will forget about Russia. It won't ramp up production of weapons (is it now?).

Perhaps Russia will let Ukraine occupy Kursk for the next few years, for the next decade even. Then what?

No one knows. It doesn't matter what Dylan writes or I write. But I know one thing, who is a shill or is not a shill probably won't have any effect on the outcome whatsoever. So why waste time expressing one's personal animosities?