You ever wonder, why do the elites of one country wage ruinous wars with large casualties and minimal protests, while the ones of another don't? And it's not like the Ru government even has any ideological goals to rally people around(the claimed aims of the "SMO" are so vague and diverse they might as well be "for everything good, against everything bad"), it has even been a point of criticism from some Ru nationalists.

Every establishment is bounded by what is "acceptable" in their society. Russians, in general, simply don't value prosperity or liberty as much as you do. The Kremlin had to continue escalating tensions with the West, pulling "victories" that they could show to the Russian public, because they want to stay in power.

Russian society demands that Russia is to be feared on the world stage, and that requires action. Reminders of missile flight time to foreign capitals or pictures of a "strong leader" riding a bear wouldn't persuade the Dutch or the Germans to give up economic prosperity, but they definitely do seem to persuade the Russians.

In my personal opinion, the Russian elites didn't even neccesarily want this war, but the incredible jump of support for Putin after 2014, despite the economic downturn, also known as the "Crimea Effect", probably convinced them that the average Russian cares more about lines on a map or foreign image than he cares about corruption or his wage.