By the end of the year, I can see Kherson liberated and the Russian forces in the south of Ukraine divided from the east with the liberation of Mariupol or Metriupol. Further damage to the Kerch rail bridge then could see the Russians forced to withdraw from Ukraine's southwest and even Crimea. Further gains in the Donbas seem likely too with perhaps the liberation of Luhansk Oblast and perhaps even Donetsk.
The Russian army seems ripe for collapse nearly everywhere with winter starting and their ranks now are mostly conscripts, worse, people dragged off city streets and thrown into combat a couple of days later with NO training at all, cannon fodder. I figure the Ukrainians would target the experienced soldiers in the second and third lines of their defenses, that would be much more profitable than killing low morale untrained conscripts who can be captured. The more pressure the Ukrainians put on their C&C, logistics and experienced soldiers the faster the collapse.
There are multiple reasons to preferentially target war criminals, they have combat experience, they know what they did and would be reluctant to face justice, and thus surrender they would impede the surrender of others in their units. Prisoners have more value than the dead, the dead can't speak out and can't often be traded for living people. There have been lots of prisoner exchanges, since the more time the Russians spend in captivity, the more "infected" they may become, from Vlad's perspective. Prisoners, unlike the dead, can't be easily covered up, the dead can't call home to relatives either, or demand back pay etc. 100,000 prisoners are harder for Vlad to deal with than 100,000 dead who can be buried and forgotten, every one of them has a story of lies, abuse, corruption and injustice.