Russia actually sued for peace earlier on. Not with Ukraine, but with us- the United States. Of course our establishment gave the smart ass reply "we cannot give you peace because we aint the ones at war with you". On a surface level, smooth brains like steve will say "LOL how dumb is Russia! If they want peace they have to include Ukraine!". But Russia knows what time it is even if the smooth brains don't. If DC told Zelensky "Enough! We will keep giving you material and weapons support/aid for another 2 weeks while you negotiate a ceasefire in furtherance of a formal permanent treaty/peace deal and then you're cut off.." - this war would be over. Ukraine will keep fighting for as long as we're propping them up, and not a minute longer. But then as you say.. I reckon war is only a bad thing to be used as a last resort if its against little brown people, communists, etc. As long as its strong brave/patriotic white christians being fed into the meatgrinder, its a good thing and is a first resort, to be encouraged to last as long as possible.
Its also getting to be a very tired, dumb take to say "Haha wow Russia is much less impressive than we thought". Yes, early on in the war, Russia had some pretty serious mistakes and setbacks, tactical and logistical fuck-ups, etc. But ever since this past winter, they've learned and adapted accordingly to the modern battlefield much better than our proxy force has. Instead of stretching themselves too thin and taking a bunch of unnecessary losses like they did early on, they're now playing to their strengths- turning this whole deal into a slow grind attrition-via-artillery battle. The casualty ratio is now enormous, and Ukraine needs their men much more than Russia needs theirs. While Russia is using Wagner troops recruited from prison and keeping their more professional troops in reserve for the long haul.