Thats like saying England grifted the USA in WW2. Whether it’s the UK or Ukraine, they are currently fighting a war of survival... and are actually clearly winning, with 90% of Ukrainians viewing Russian defeat as inevitable.
—> and are actually clearly winning,
I would disagree based on the permanent loss of territory. So far they’ve lost 1/4 their country containing $1 trillion of mineral and energy resources - which I can’t objectively call anything but losing bigly.
Once the remaining sea ports and coastline are gone, ukraine will be a landlocked country that must import energy and raw materials overland. They will be a shadow of their former economy - which was anemic.
The PR effort has been strong, but I think Russia played this right.