I also don’t know why they keep saying it’s going to be a stalemate, Russia is already taking kilometres on the north which is more than Ukraine managed to take during the whole two months now.
Once the offensive burns itself out, it’s almost certain that Russia will start a serious offensive of their own.
I’m not sure about that, but we are right now in the phase of manufacturing consent for intervention. Not sure exactly how that intervention would look since it’s rather unspecified now, but grabbing part of Ukraine is probable. No idea if it will work, up to last year i would say that revanchism for “kresy” is dead and officially opposed by every government since 1945 including the bourgeois ones but here we are again. They can also just go and do it regardless of popular support.
On a side note, Russia recently warned Poland that acts of hostility against Belarus are acts of hostility against Russia, so they might suspect something more?