[nukes are] the only way to properly secure sovereignty and territorial integrity

As North Korea had correctly identified early and worked towards diligently to protect their people.

In what way is Russia weakened?

Last I checked, mainstream western sources report that Russian economy is booming. For example, the World Bank just reclassified Russia as a high income country https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/world-bank-country-classifications-by-income-level-for-2024-2025

The IMF forecasts that Russian economy is set to grow faster than all the western economies https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/17/russia-forecast-to-grow-faster-than-advanced-economies-in-2024-imf.html

Russian oil and gas revenues soared 41% in first half of the year, as the data shows https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russian-oil-gas-revenue-soars-41-first-half-data-shows-2024-07-03/

Russian military is stronger today than at the start of the war https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/ukraine-krieg-nato-oberbefehlshaber-und-generalinspekteur-ueber-folgen-und-perspektiven-a-9cb8d225-8bd8-454d-830d-009c9f46dfc9#selection-791.0-791.81

The number of Russian troops is constantly increasing https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/12/17/ukraine-s-top-general-to-le-monde-the-number-of-russian-troops-is-constantly-increasing_6736188_4.html

Russian MIC is outproducing the west. For example, Russia is able to produce 3x as many artillery shells as all of the west combined https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html

How long is a long time?

I remember when people were legitimately saying Ukraine could take back crimea...