Right, but about 98% of Russian gains came from the first months of battles in 2022. Since then, Russian gains have been few, just empty and destroyed villages and small towns, a really slow and expensive advance of just 35 km west of the city of Donetsk.
Ukraine recovered much more territory with Russia's departure from Kharkov, Kiev and Sumy in 2022.
About 40% of Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts remain with Ukraine. A large portion of Kherson oblast also remains with Ukraine.
There is still a long way to go before the complete liberation of Donbas and with the current advance it will still cost Russia several years of battles.
And yet, Russia still keeps Ukraine's entire command and organizational structure intact and allows them to be nurtured by NATO weapons and money. This is absolutely disturbing. Russia seems afraid of winning.
There it is in bold. The first thing you said that has a little bit of insight. There is the theory that at this point, Russia is dragging this on rather than using swift overwhelming force for a few reasons, not limited to:
1. The EU bleeds resources in this fight. It takes them out of an effective trade/tech war against China. Russia knows it's not going to rule the world, but if its Chinese ally can, it will earn major points in the new world order for doing its part to prevent an effective gang-up on China.
2. The EU is in recession while Russia is growing and indigenizing things that it used to import from Western Europe. Its economy is also orienting towards China and away from its enemies which was a Russian vulnerability. This will continue for as long as the conflict is alive and potentially stall afterwards.
3. Russia saw that its military is not anywhere near as effective as it thought with significant levels of corruption. As long as the war is on, Russia sharpens its claws. It gets to test and refine its weaponry, use up old stock, make new weapons, streamline production, fire and depose of incompetent leaders to install better ones, use this oppertunity to reawaken itself in case it needs to be in form for WWIII.
4. If Russia achieves a swift victory in Ukraine, all Russia-haters go into hiding and become terrorists. As long as this is happening, they are pulled onto the battlefield and killed in the open. The longer Russia grinds down its opposition in Ukraine, the smoother the transition to owning the territories it conquered.
There's more reasons that were discussed but you may ultimately dismiss that as all just "long text" with "absurd conclusions" since killing everybody now seems to be the only way to fight that you understand. Pity you don't command an army, eh? LOL
I see more emotions in you defending a meager, expensive and therefore extremely inefficient progress in battlefield and moving away from the most reasonable conclusion, which is Putin's inability to resolve the Ukraine issue so far, unfortunately.
You have imagined this, probably coming from your own emotions. The most logical conclusion is that Russia is not able to quickly resolve the Ukraine issue or it would have a long time ago. The theory I presented above is a backup one to this most obvisous conclusion as finishing Ukraine in a few months would have been the best outcome. This is accepted by everyone here but it also certainly does not mean that Russia is losing. It still has the much stronger upper hand in battlefield control, land gain, loss exchange ratio, and overall national effect as Russia's not even in wartime economy while Ukraine is basically wartorn.
You are completely unable to read arguments but only imagine simplistic ones which are not the opposing point. You argued that Russia needs to engage in more assassinations. I argued against that. You argued that Russia is losing?? Everyone can tell that's nonsense just by the map.
Given the difference in size and equipment, Russia should have defeated Ukraine a long time ago, and not be so afraid of destroying Zelensky and the so-called incompetent Ukrainian command structure.
Ukraine's not alone, is it? How many countries are bleeding into Ukraine to keep it standing?
I only answered what was worth.
Your answers don't even address the points, only point you imagine; they are worth nothing.
You wrote long texts with absurd conclusions in defense of Russia's sad and evident military and intel incompetence against Ukraine's cheap actions.
My responses are suitable for people who can read. For others, they're just "long text" with "absurd conclusions" which you cannot even understand much less respond to. Calling something absurd without a point-to-point reasoning is not a legitimate debate response.
But unfortunately you are already starting to lower the level of the forum with personal and intellectual childish attacks against those who disagree with your beliefs.
I tell it like it is. You can't read. Your responses either avoid the topic or they pretend I've said something else. And as for the level of the forum, you can go check from the first message in this exchange who has more upvotes to see who better-represents the forum and whom everyone is either ignoring, laughing at, or arguing against, thus lowering the level.
This is very boring and lowers the standard of debate.
It's really really boring when you can't read and respond to things that are not said or poorly to things that are said but you clearly did not understand. The standard of debate is that you need to be able to read.
By the way, this here is easily the most childish and standard lowering line yet:
"It's sad but apparently the Ukrainians are supermen and the Russians are subhumans with no ability to defend themselves"
Sure. Let's start with you reading what I wrote and responding in point-to-point format. My examples should serve to teach you what proper point-to-point is.