I'm not really sure how that's a contradiction. You can be losing one battle and still be winning the overall war, and vise versa

That is easy, Ukraine is going to be an strategic defeat for Russia. Whatever they where going to get is not worth the fallout: NATO has been strengthened, the Russian economy is in shambles, their military reputation is also on shambles, the cat is out of the bag that the reason they oppose NATO is that it prevents them from invading other countries. Dont get me wrong I think they will capture some eastern territories of Ukraine, however because of the way they are going about it they are going to get just a wasteland they destroyed.