bonesy

Call it whatever you want, but this is what a losing invasion looks like in real life. I have spent years in Ukraine, on training grounds, near the front, and inside the system. If Russia were winning, this war would not look like this in year four. They would not still be grinding forward meters at a time. They would not be burning through equipment from the Soviet stockpile, pulling out T-62s and T-55s, and fielding poorly trained replacements to fill gaps left by massive casualties. Armies that are winning do not mobilize repeatedly, empty prisons, or trade tens of thousands of lives for small pieces of ground. Your Iraq comparison is exactly right. If the United States had invaded Iraq, lost hundreds of thousands of troops, failed to secure the country after years of fighting, and only controlled a fraction of the terrain, no serious person would call that victory. They would call it a strategic failure. The same standard applies here. Ukraine is still fighting. It's command structure still functions. Its society is still intact. It's military is adapting faster than Russia is. Russia is not advancing because it is strong. It is advancing because it is willing to spend lives at a rate no professional military would accept. That is not winning. That is attrition without an exit. Anyone calling this a Russian victory has never planned operations, never trained soldiers for combat, and never watched what a real winning campaign looks like. This war has exposed Russian weakness, not strength, and it has done so in front of the entire world. Slava Ukraini. Heroiam Slava. 🇺🇦