I believe there’s little doubt that Putin surrounded himself with “Yes Men” who were afraid to tell him the honest truth of Russia’s military capabilities. They blew smoke up his ass while also convincing Putin that military objectives could be met with minimal destruction and civilian casualties. So the war was fought with this strategy in mind.
It bears to point out, Russia has an almost unlimited supply of artillery shells and bombs as well as a military doctrine that calls for tactical nuke usage in a written policy known as “escalate to de-escalate”.
I’ve found it difficult to learn what Ukrainian losses are. For one, only the Russian losses are being reported. For another, Russian enlisted troops have far better cellphone discipline. NCOs tend to destroy cellphones if their troops are caught using them. So we’re not getting a lot of footage of destroyed Ukrainian equipment. Add to this, Russians have been banned from using many popular social media sites where this info is disseminated.
A neocon podcast I listen to (despite being a neocon podcast) has estimated Ukrainian tank losses to be equal to that of Russia’s. We also know that Mariupol has been flattened, Chernihiv and Kharkiv continue to be targeted with bombs and long-range artillery, and now Lviv is being hit with cruise missiles.
So who the hell really knows anything? The Russians might not be winning, not in the way they wanted to, but they don’t appear to be losing either.
The point is that they are moving forward on every axis of advance and not a single serious attack was repelled. Counter-attacks Ukraine declares are phony, taking place in media but not in real life. They lost air capabilities, as proven by that convoy sitting off Kiev unmolested.
LDNR reports 21,000 Ukrainian casualties on their front alone, which seems high but not impossible given the concentration of the UAF in their encirclement.