It IS still in progress, and the momentum ever since the beginning is NOT in Ukraine's favor. Russia is winning! And you are correct, it is being prolonged by a delusional west at the expense of Ukrainian lives and massive losses on the ground. This could all have been easily avoided -- except for the intense insistence of the west/US for a proxy war. The insistence includes massive amounts of arms, NATO training for 8 years, and billions upon billions of our tax dollars.
Russia would come back, as it has, and then it would have been able to invade its former satellites with impunity but for NATO membership.
The USSR disintegrated in 1991. The aggressive expansion of NATO began in 1999. So, where is your proof that Russia was set to invade the Baltics? They had almost 10 years to do that, It never happened.
In 2007 after numerous countries were added to the so-called DEFENSIVE military organization, " NATO, " Putin issued a warning. It fell on deaf ears. Do you recall what happened in 1961? Russia placed missiles in Cuba right on our border (90 miles away), and we nearly went to WWIII over that threat. Russia was saying the same thing to the west. Get off my butt with your expansionist agenda. The response from the west was deafening.
And then, the US instigated a coup in Ukraine in 2014, and our state department hand-picked their person to run the country. So, is Putin supposed to ignore this aggression/invasion by the US -- on top of the doubling of NATO countries?
Ukraine is being tortured by the West for nefarious purposes. The torture consists of giving it enough weapons to continue to avoid being killed by a rabid bear, but the bear keeps coming because of high energy prices, which the west keeps exacerbating.
You sure got part of that right! The west is torturing Ukariane for their own personal agenda and destroying that country while losing many lives. As for energy prices, you seem to forget one important point. The energy prices have been brought on by economic sanctions that have killed our economy, launched the highest inflation in 40 years and heaped big profits on the country with the oil. Now, that's real smart. What wonderful leaders we have there.
Now you may think this has worked out well for the west, but I sure don't. It is a perfect example of destruction by our own stupidity! This will not end well.
“Now you may think this has worked out well for the west, but I sure don’t. “
It has worked out well for the deep state, not westerners.
“Russia is winning!”
No bias there, eh?
I disagree, and for the following reasons:
1.) Ukraine regularly updates its estimates on Russian casualty and equipment losses. As of this date, Russia has lost well north of 36,000 military personnel, and somewhere around 60 percent of its armored vehicles (tanks, personnel carriers, transports, etc.) In fact, the Russians have lost so many of their “modern” tanks that they are reverting to placing mothballed 1970’s era junk on the battlefield.
2.) The Russian forces outnumber Ukrainian forces by at least 3:1, and yet the frontlines are largely at a stalemate. If the Russians were affecting a kill ratio of even 1:1, then there is no way the Ukrainian military could hold them back - and yet they are doing just that. Russian offensives begin, some are successful for a time, but then the Russians “run out of steam,” and cease their forward momentum. That would imply that the Russian military are having a bad time with logistics. No surprise there since the Ukrainians have been purposely and wisely targeting Russian logistical vehicles. In fact, so heavy are the Russians losses of supply trucks, that they have had to resort to commendeering Ukrainian civilian lories.
3.) The newly-introduced M142 HIMARS are striking Russian ammo and fuel dumps deep behind Russian lines, destroying dozens by the day. And the Ukrainians have not just the M777 artillery but the modified M777-A2, which use GPS guided munitions.
Bottom line: the Russians are not “winning” - they are getting their asses handed to them by a much less superior military force. That generally happens when you invade a sovereign country, and its people are willing to fight to the last man to stop the aggression.
Say hi to Putin for me, on your next visit to the Kremlin.