Additionally, with the firepower at just the US’ disposal, we could level almost every major pop center in Russia. Waves of Tomahawks, ICBMs and bombers could do it without the US putting boots on the ground. We nearly did this with Baghdad back in 02.
That’s the thing about martyrs - nobody NEEDS to fill his shoes. They just need to claim to be “carrying on his legacy” and constantly refer back to him, and that’s good enough for a large portion of the cult.
We’ve seen this exact thing happen with a lot of cults that have gone mainstream - it happened with Mormonism, and it happened with Scientology.