So Russia clawed some of the Ukraine back, I would be surprised if it was truly unexpected. Overall Russia still lost big, it went from having a friendly government in charge of the whole country to an unfriendly government in charge of most of the country and friendly rump regions requiring annexation or civil war to establish.
do you believe the Russian
if yes, you can google-translate the article from today: "In The Pampas Of Donbas" (now I see the title is catchy in English, too)
describing ... Active Duty Russian soldiers (whose names are known to the Kommersant, but are not given out in the article ...) sent to "clean" Углегорск (Uglegorsk), Дебальцево (Debaltsevo) but ordered to get lost right after when "locals are put on checkpoints so that they can talk to journalists about their previous work of coal-miners" -- this is what Russian article says ... I remember Military Successes of local coal-miners praised in this Thread
P.S. Some parts would likely get lost in google-translation, like this conversation:
A: There are Buryats behind that slag heap. (
- they're visibly different from Slavs)
B: What Buryats??
A: Well ... the Donbas Indians.