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Actually, I have gone over this here on FR many times. Here is one of the most recent (3 weeks ago) posts I have made on this subject.

“why did it take Russia this long?”

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Because this “war” has actually been two entirely different “wars.”

Unfortunately most freepers do not understand that Putin’s original mission for the “special military operation” was rather limited to the exact things he publicly specified. Independence for the Donbass (though still being in Ukraine) demilitarization (getting rid of the NATO equipment) denazification (despite ignorant freepers confusing some of the public in many countries being Nazis...including ours...with Ukraine’s government and MILITARY being controlled by NAZIs.) And, of course an agreement to never join NATO.

Most freepers do not even know that when early in Zelensky’s administration he tried to push back on them they openly threatened to kill him...he backed down. Most freepers also don’t know that we deliberately chose the Nazi’s (nationalists, Azov, etc.) to train and to send to the front in the Donbass because they were the most brutal and most likely to get the job done.

Any country that has Nazi brigades (and Ukraine has a lot of them) is a Nazi administration.

So, Russia planned a minimal kinetic action and openly made clear they would leave Ukraine once the mission was accomplished. Russia began negotiations with Zelensky, they reached a tentative agreement in March and Boris Johnson and Lloyd Austin paid visits to Zelensky to tell him that if he went through with the agreement they would no longer support Ukraine. But, if they stayed in the “war” NATO would provide all the weapons and money he needed. He chose their offer over Russia’s.

Russia continued the “operation” making slow gains with few casualties, killed an enormously large amount of Ukrainian soldiers and destroyed an enormous amount of military equipment.

When that happened NATO (read: the United States) realized Russia would win, couldn’t let that happen and escalated their monetary and equipment support, even bringing Ukrainians into NATO countries for training to NATO standards. Ukraine engaged in 7 mobilizations. And developing high paid mercenary programs to enlarge the force. And Mi-6 worked with Ukraine to go on a large counter offensive at multiple points. (They planned and trained for this for 3 months.) At that point Russia had 150,000 troops in Ukraine and Ukraine forces were up to 400,000.

Russia came to the realization that this wasn’t a Russia vs. Ukraine war. This was a Russia vs. NATO war. Since that point they have been readjusting to the new reality.

If they were able to take 20% of Ukrainian territory with very minimal forces, obviously their advantage is likely to be much greater when they have approximately 500,000 troops involved. They have expanded their arsenal extensively including the items I mentioned earlier...and brought in 800 new tanks, 11 strategic bombers. 800 planes and helos. They are planning for a big campaign.

And the nonsense about Russia’s mobilized troops being so inferior is wrong. These newly mobilized troops are all former troops who were on Reserve classification. And, even more important than that is that Ukraine forces have been decimated. The kill ratio throughout this “war” has been 10 Ukrainians for every one Russian. Ukraine is down to conscripting 16 yr. olds and 65 year olds and they are in the process of registering women.

If you have been following this saga I am sure you realize that just in the last week Russia has knocked out much of Ukraine’s energy system.

The foreigners who are “getting out of Dodge” are making the right call. Ukraine is not someplace anyone will want to be when the ground freezes in November.
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When MacGregor (and Ritter, too, for that matter) said that Russia was grinding Ukraine down and the war would be over soon they were talking about the first war...the war against Ukraine. And they were right!

Now we are in the second war...the war against NATO and Russia has been preparing for it for months. NATO (read: us) has been escalating continuously and this Macgregor video outlines that we have now threatened Russia with bringing in 90,000 troops (U.S. and Polish.)

Both MacGregor and Ritter still believe Russia’s victory is assured unless nuclear weapons become involved. Russia has depleted huge quantities of NATO’s armory, leaving many NATO countries below defense capabilities WITH NOTHING LEFT TO SEND TO UKRAINE. Italy’s new president has decided not to take part in Phase 6 contributions and will just complete the aid her predecessor promised. Even the U.S. has run out of the weapons they previously sent and are now reduced to buying broken weapons from Eastern European countries and letting out contracts for repair and refurbishing so they can be sent to Ukraine. We are sending Hawk missiles (system began in the 1970s) but they will all have to be refurbished. So this refurbished and repaired equipment will not come until next year. The new stuff is being ordered from MIC and that will come between next year and 2024.

In October alone Russia killed 12,000 Ukrainian troops while losing 1,300 of their own. Ukraine is now actively conscripting women (a post on Telegram showed the notice of a pregnant woman) So Ukraine has run out of man power and Russia is increasing to half a million. You do the math.

Just today a member of Kiev’s city council suggested that residents should go away for the winter. He said it was going to be a very bad situation there (no electricty, no heat, limited water and sewage.)

I understand that most freepers only get limited, censored, manipulated info on this war. Ergo, they are clueless. The bottom line is Russia is currently winning even with their small force on the front line. To date, there have been approximately 10,00 KIA (including both separtists troops and Wagner and Chechen fighters) and Ukraine has had over 105,000 KIA.

It will be interesting to see if the U.S. can entice Russia to call off their upcoming campaign. For the sake of the Ukrainian people I hope we find a way to negotiate a settlement before that campaign happens.