If you believe Russia is losing this war, it means you are swallowing a deliberately rosy picture of Ukrainian battlefield success from Western media without the skepticism such claims should be given.
The battle in Mariupol is indeed over. There is a contingent of maybe 1500 soldiers holed up in the Azovstol steel mill in underground bunkers the Russians are reluctant to storm because fighting underground with fanatical and desperate defenders would...not be good. Instead they have encircled the mill and are waiting them out. The plant gets shelled from time to time and the Russians are just waiting for them to run out of food and come out.
Mariupol is a serious defeat for Ukraine. The estimates ranged from 8 to 15,000 soldiers largely made up of the Azov battalion were defending the city, with the low estimate provided (surprisingly) by the Russians. I have read an estimate of 1500 POW's captured, the rest killed or still in the steel mill.
8,000 men is a lot to lose. The main battle is now in the Donbas region. Russian tactics are to encircle the enemy army, pin them in place and apply artillery. There is an estimate of 60k Ukrainian defenders in that army and almost all Russian strength applied to them by a 3 to 1 margin. Russian casualties are light because they do not engage with infantry except to slowly advance and resist Ukrainian breakout attempts. The artillery does the killing.
This army cannot be resupplied or reinforced. When it falls, and fall it will, the entire nature of the war will change. There will be no significant army of any size between Russia and the rest of the country. What they choose to do then is anybody's guess. Perhaps at that moment Ukraine and America will choose negotiation, but waiting for that army to lose is just throwing away their lives. Negotiation in good faith should begin now to put an end to this extremely dangerous war.
One more word on the comment that Russia is attacking the Donbas. This misses the extremely important point that Russia is fighting WITH the Donbas against Ukraine. The two breakaway republics in the Donbas, Lugansk and Donetsk, formed militia armies eight years ago and have fought a wearisome battle against Ukraine for that time, claiming the lives of roughly 16,000 people.
These people speak Russian and do not wish to be part of Ukraine. Helping them and keeping the rest of Ukraine out of NATO is the reason Russia entered the war--a war that has been going on for eight years now--and remains Russia's core demand. These are not onerous demands and could have been agreed to back in December to avoid the whole wretched mess it has become.
If America and its proxy Ukraine refuse to negotiate, Russia is going to destroy that army and WIN. There will be no need to offer Putin a face-saving measure to pull out of the war. Russia will take what it wants and impose peace on its terms. It is the West that needs a face-saving solution to back out of this war and avoid complete disaster for Ukraine.
