Putin is betting he can outlast the West i.e. the West will lose interest before he (Putin) runs out of soldiers or shells.
It's still an even money bet.
Nah. He's waiting in hope that his allies in the US Republican Party can stop or severely curtail US (or better still, NATO) military assistance to Ukraine.
Hey have already had some success in this regard; Even Biden is wary of the electoral consequences if he allows Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia with US supplied weapons systems.
Everything depends on the US elections in November; The results (and not only that of the Presidential contest) will likely determine the outcome of the war.
At this point, there are two major factions in the Republican Party - those who have swallowed the Russian propaganda and want to withdraw support for Ukraine (either because they think it won't hurt the US to do so, or because they fear that it will hurt the US not to do so, for example by provoking nuclear war); And those who stand to gain financially from Russian success, or have already been paid to take a pro-Russian stance.
The Democrats also include a third major faction - people who still back Ukraine and recognise that it's the right thing to do both morally, and in terms of the long term interests of the USA.
But Russian propaganda, and Russian money, are white-anting this third faction as much as they possibly can (we saw a drive-by post on this board a few days ago that is a tiny part of this systematic effort to erode pro-Ukraine feeling in the US).