There is no good reason for uncertainty about matters like this. In orbit assets can produce imagery that would make very clear what is happening.
The only involved people who do not know the truth of this situation is the general public. The Russians know. The US/UK/Ukraine knows. Only the public does not know.
And it need not be any sort of concealment of imagery capability. There are purely civilian spacecraft that can image these locations. They clearly have been told not to release any such images — with the excuse being it would reveal this and that and this and that to the Russians — which is absurd since the Russians have their own satellites and already know this information.
No, this is all about manipulating Congress and providing Congress only the information the Administration wants it to have.
This is a very specific and particular reality where there is zero technical motivation behind refusing to release this to the public. The motivation is all something else.
Congress is in on the scam.
As for Putin, I chose not to spend too very much time on media extracts of his recent press conference. There is a kapwing.com feature that will translate uploaded audio, and there are many recordings floating around of his answers.
1) He sat in a press conference surrounded by journalists and answered questions for 4 hours. I saw no evidence of illness.
2) The vast majority of questions asked were not about Ukraine. The Russian people are less focused on it than FR.
3) There were questions about inflation, particularly of eggs. I cannot recall anyone asking Biden about the price of a dozen eggs. This is maybe interesting.
4) Nothing said by Putin, who I suspect everyone pro and anti will say is a Russian patriot, suggested any concern on his part about NATO weaponry. He is briefed on the battlefield and those briefings are from the Russian satellite imagery. There was no evidence in his actual spoken words to suggest he has changed his goals of deNazification, deMilitarization and ensured neutrality of Ukraine. I heard absolutely no change to any of that.
That's why articles written by main stream media authors are usually wrong, because most of them don't bother to look at the actual data available.
Or read what the participants on both sides have to say.
Russians fighting in the Krynky area are not happy with the situation