I don't want to swap the lying DNCMedia sources with lying Russian government or PRC sources. They both lie.
The Russians aren't wining. All your “points” are opinion, and sound way to good to be true. Nothing you say is neutrally established fact.
I do not believe a word out of the Western press. NOR do I believe the Russian or Chinese press.
I don't believe the Ukrainians either.
The only important fact to me is this: I thought the might of the Russians, as the world's second most superior military, would crush Ukraine in a month. Yet here it is a year later and the Ukrainians are not crushed.
You say:
It will not be long before the AFU collapses somewhere along the line of contact, and the Russians will then move, having preserved its men and equipment.
If it will not be long, can you give me a date?
A month? Two? By June 1st? Fall?
Not later than fall, but perhaps by June.
Elements of the AFU along the northern portion of the line of contact (Krasyny Liman to Kupiansk) are already complaining about their lack of ammunition. The despe5rate search for ammunition usuable by the AFU reflects the shortage. As for “opinion”, it is not “opinion” that the SMO’s primary objective is demilitarization of Ukraine. It is not “opinion” that the AFU cannot engage in combined arms warfare because they have little artillery and ammunition, no air force to speak of or many drones, virtually no air defense, and no modern main battle tanks (even its T 64s have mostly been pulled off the line of contact). It is not “opinion” that the RF’s ammo dumps in Transnistria are the largest in Europe and perfectly suited for AFU use. It is not “opinion” that despite transparently false NATO propaganda, Russians are not running out of artillery shells and missiles. That bit of mendacious fluff has appeared from time to time in the Western press since last spring, yet the AFU has had to endure Russian artillery barrages that have ranged from 20k to 60k shells a day. Massive missile strikes continue to occur periodically and are dismantling the electrical and other war fighting infrastructure of Ukraine. That is not an “opinion”. The Zelensky regime’s dragging 16 year-olds, the elderly, and women into the AFU is not difficult to discover. It is not an “opinion” that giving various flavors of modern main battle tanks or aircraft will make no difference in this conflict. Learning to operate a tank at a very basic level takes at least 6 months, but it takes years to learn how to use tanks in combined arms warfare (look for what Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, for example, writes on this topic in “45”, which is an online magazine). As for aircraft, even the extremely pro Ukraine British press admits that the fastest a pilot can become proficient in an F 16 is 35 months (that’s the shortest course). That is not an “opinion”. If you look at how long it takes us to train pilots and tankers, you will understand. I would also mention that there are enormous logistical issues relating to the use of these weapons platforms. Brian Berletic discusses this at length on The New Atlas (he is pro RF, but these are easily verifiable technical issues). It is NOT an opinion that the losses of the AFU were catastrophic in Kherson and Kharkov. In Kherson the AFU never reached the RF lines because of the intensity of the artillery and arial bombardment.
None of this is a matter of favoring one side over the other. Ukraine is potentially a few missile strikes short of losing its electrical grid (do you know that the Ukrainian train system, which is the AFU’s main logistical asset, is almost all electric and that the Ukrainian guage is incompatible with Europes’, so that European diesels can’t pick up the slack? That is not an “opinion”.); the AFU’s position is precarious all along the line of contact.
I agree that the RF could have crushed Ukraine at the beginning, but that was not the objective of the SMO. Had the West not pressured Zelensky to walk away from the agreement he had hammered out with the RF in Istanbul in March, the RF gamble on a very limited military operation would have proved correct. Unfortunately, Zelensky did walk away. Now we don’t know what the RF’s end game will be. My suggestion about that end game IS an opinion. Whatever the details of the final settlement, there will be no Ukraine as it existed at 2/24/22.
If you are truly interested in fair-minded, fact-based (but far from infallible) information about the war, you can get detail on what is happening on the line of contact down to a granular level on The Military Summary Channel, and a broader perspective that includes both military and geopolitical issues is available from Alexander Mercouris. Berletic is pro-Russian, but he is extremely good on technical issues and always provides extensive links to his sources. The first two post every day, and Berlectic posts 2-3 times a week. Mercouris is a former lawyer and tries scrupulously to be as fair as possible.
I wish you well.