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Thanks for making the effort to look up the names I provided for you. I presumed that I could count on you to do some basic research. Ukraine is a corrupt state; any oligarch such as George Soros may be wielding far more power than those officially recognized as politicians. Any billionaire who has called Ukraine their home at one time or another can be presumed in the interests of their own self-preservation to be a player in the local political game.

The mistakes in your perception are based mostly from placing importance on meaningless pieces of propaganda intended to shape your point of view and exploit people’s tendency toward confirmation bias. All wars have a propaganda component, this one seems to have an unprecedented amount provided by both sides. This is more of a sign of the times than an indicator of progress by either side.

Is this war going differently than what was expected by planners on the Russian side. Obviously! They were duped by incoherent foreign policy decisions made largely by the Biden administration. None of this would have happened if the Democrats had not been allowed to steal the 2020 election. But have the Russians been losing since last April as you declared in one of your recent posts? That is ridiculous. They have their own goals and measures of success that are unencumbered by political correctness or Western expectations.

Are the Russians anxious to end this conflict... it is hard to say. They have been pulling in 50% more revenue from their exports from less volume nearly all year long. Even our Western European allies have imported 20% more LNG (liquified natural gas) at much higher prices from Russia this year than last. Putin has been laughing all the way to the bank all year long as the West has implemented sanctions that help enrich him and hurt the West.

Putin truly is the “big guy” in Russia and his “cut” is likely much larger than anything that Joe Biden has even dreamed of. When the conflict ends with the damage already done to the worldwide economy, energy prices will drop. This means Putin’s share will drop. This is a perverse incentive to achieving “peace” in the region.

It is admirable that you have made an attempt to research the history of this conflict. Unfortunately sifting through the BS on the internet these days is nearly impossible. To gauge the actual situation, one must look at indicators that sometimes do not seem directly related to the conflict.

This morning while I was writing this, our power went out. We live near the foothills and when we have gusty winds the power often goes out caused by trees and limbs falling on power lines. We and our neighbors are accustomed to this. Within moments of the power going out I could hear generators running all around us. When my wife and I have been sleeping with the lights out, we have often heard generators before we realized that the power had gone out. The noise is an indicator. This year there has been a plethora of indicators that the situation in Ukraine is different from what Western news sources and politicians are telling us that it is. This also includes Wikipedia and other sources that you may believe are impartial sources of historical information.

To your points

” Ukraine is a corrupt state; “ —> yes it is, however that doesn’t mean that we should cheer on an even more corrupt state - Putin’s state to conquer it.

Furthermore, Ukraine was moving AWAY from corruption and Putin didn’t like it.

And, more importantly to us - the conquest of Ukraine or vassaldom of Ukraine would have been exactly like the Munich compromise - giving Putin’s regime a green light to then attack US

“any oligarch such as George Soros may be wielding far more power than those officially recognized as politicians.”

George Soros is evil, but he’s not an oligarch - he’s not got anywhere near that absolute, though geographically limited power.

” Any billionaire who has called Ukraine their home at one time or another can be presumed in the interests of their own self-preservation to be a player in the local political game.”

— and you would see the same in Putin’s Russia.

however, to the point - the oligarchs aren’t the reason for the war, nor the reason for the West’s support of the Ukrainian people

” They were duped by incoherent foreign policy decisions made largely by the Biden administration. “

Not really - on that, the spinelessness of the Biden administration, they were correct.

Biden was ready to given up on Ukraine and pull out like in Afghanistan. But Zelensky refusing his offer to escape was one of the turning points against Putin’s invasion.

The others were
1. Putin’s regime thought there was more support for Russia in the eastern provinces of ukraine than there actually was. This was because people saw the failure of Russia in 2014 and also Russia’s invasion in 2014 galvanised the sense of nationhood in Ukraine

2. Putin’s regime overestimated their military capacity - due to the heavy corruption (wayyyy more than Ukraine), their military is somewhere near Thailand’s in potency, leave alone the 3rd strongest in the world

3. Putin’s regime underestimated the training of Ukraine’s military - thinking them to be the same as in 2014. This wasn’t the case.

"But have the Russians been losing since last April as you declared in one of your recent posts? That is ridiculous. They have their own goals and measures of success that are unencumbered by political correctness or Western expectations."

1. They have been losing by any standard - look at the map on March 30th

compare that to the situation on 15th November

Definite pushback

2. you say "their own goals and measures of success"

Their goals were:
1. weaken NATO -- a big failure, it actually strengthened NATO and pushed Sweden and Finland to join NATO

2. Reduce Kyiv to vassaldom - another failure

3. Reduce Kyiv to demilitirazation to be picked apart piece by piece later - another failture

4. After that failed, to take the provinces in the east - with sham referenda --> with the fall of Kherson, that has failed as well

The failures are even talked about in Russian media - so yes, they have failed even by their standards

Are the Russians anxious to end this conflict.

The Russian people - yes. Even the ones who believe the state media that Ukrainians are drug-addledd Nazi genetic monsters want to end the conflict

The proof of this is 700,000 who left after the partial mobilization (and the nearly 1 million who had left earlier)

The roots of this conflict go back deepest to the 1200s

With the collapse of the anarchic “loose federation” called Kievan Rus, the Eastern Slavs were split.

With the enthronment of Kublai Khan the Mongol Khaganate was split.

Moscow, the tax-collector for the great Khagans, decided to join the race to recreate Chingiz Khan’s empire - and they won against Kazan, Sibr, etc.

They then decided to “reunite the Rus”, then “All Slavs”, then “All Slavs and all Orthodox” and reconquer Constantinople.

That’s why Tukhachevsky - an ardent anti-Christian, stil dreamt of conquering Constantinople.

That died in the ashes of World War 1.

With the end of the western part of the Tsarist empire, the Russians bid their time and then recreated it in 1945 with their satellite states.

That ended in 1990.

Now the Eastern Slavic states of Belarus and Ukraine were going their own way and the imperialist mindset of Muscowy couldn’t tolerate it.

Putin used this to keep a vice-like grip on power.

With his escalation of the 2nd Chechen war (read about the way the Russians destroyed 3000+ Vainakh nations in the Caucasus) he got a narrative to stay in power. And he’s done that ever since.

Russia would not stop until it’s imperialist mindset ends - and that can only end with a strong defeat - just as Imperial Japan, Imperial (and Nazi) Germany’s mindsets ended with World War II. Or Britain and France’s imperialist mindsets ended with the Suez canal and then the troubles in Malaysia and Indo-China.