What bearded Marx discloses about the War in Ukraine and Putin's dithering?

Commenting on the initial, largely ineffective, if not incompetent conduct of the Civil War by the North in the United States, Marx observed: “Anxiety to keep the ‘loyal’ slave/holders … in good humor and fear of driving them [away] … in a word, a tender regard for [their] interests, prejudices and sensibilities … have affected the Union with incurable paralysis since the beginning of war, driven it to take half-measures, forced it to hypocritically disavow the principle at issue in the war and to spare the enemy’s most vulnerable spot—the root of the evil—slavery itself." 

We can add next to the word slavery here today also Nazism and fascism. And then we can make the following statement or rather factual observation: "Anxiety to keep domestic oligarchs loyal and foreign 'partners' assured and in good humor and in fear of driving them away, in a word, a tender liberal regard for one's own assumed interests, prejudices, and sensibilities shared with the powers that be have affected Russia with a notable and no longer concealable paralysis since the beginning of the crisis and war in Ukraine, driven Putin and the Russian government to half-measures, forced it to hypocritically disavow the principle at issue in the war and to spare the enemy again and again together with his most vulnerable spot and the root of the evil itself--its Nazi, fascist character, its oligarchic nature and its desire to see Russia delenda."

One does not need to be a Marxist to learn one or two things from Marx. However, I am much positive that, while the current leadership in Moscow did have to sit in classes on Marxism, they chose to waste it. Lessons neglected in one's youth cannot be easily made up either by senior men or by senior politicians.