Russia - threadbanned users in OP

At Donetsk direction Russian army attempting to block Lysychansk and seize Lysychansk-Bakhmut highway. Russian artillery shelled Lysychansk, Verkhniokamianka and Siversk. Russian aviation conducted airstrike near Vovchoyarivka. Assaults continue at Verkhniokamianka and Lysychansk refinery, - General Staff of Armed Forces of Ukraine says in the morning report

It is. What it is.

Seriously?!

They have went from bring seriously rolled on, to inflicting massive casualties and serious damage to the supposed second strongest army in the world, in a period of 8 years.

Name another nation who has undergone such a transformative change in such a short space of time.

Depends on what you mean by repel - could things be worse - yes - could they be better, also yes.

Just because you aren't losing as badly as expected doesn't mean you still aren't losing - from that POV yes Ukraine have failed to fully repel the Russians. Otherwise the swathes of red on these maps would be blue instead.

I mean the fact that Russia still holds large amounts of territory in east and south implies that they have not been repelled - if they were then they wouldnt be in the country. At this point its semantics on what you consider repelling vs what I do.

..What? Where did I ever say anything about this? You're just being needlessly bitter here - do you think I am one of those putinbots under the bed you see everywhere or what? I have no affinity for Russia in any sense, so why would it suck that they wont take the Verkohvna Rada? I would think its quite a good thing, do you not agree?

Theyve gotten a fair amount of howitzers from Italy, France and US, theyve all been in use to some effect certainly.

Russian army suffers from the same corruption as Ukrainian, only advantage Russia has is that they have had the funds to buy newer weapons and planes and crucially, missiles. But in terms of the troops and organisation of their armed forces, there is serious corruption and rot. Same as rest of society over there. At least Ukrainians have had NATO training, Russians have only had joint trainings with the Chinese and their "made in China" armies.

They were never going to take Kiev by force - they likely thought if they surrounded it the Ukrainian government would surrender, but they got bogged down and failed. Encirclement is really their only tool, as they alternative is totally flatten cities and shoot on sight

No, again.

Russia’s advantage is due to its massive superiority in numbers of available weaponry and ammunition. Also the fact that the top brass cares not for its people, and is ready and willing to throw any available body into the grinder to get what they want. Ukraine have done a remarkable job fending them off. Most of us here can remember the early days watching this war, watching the street cams in Kiev listening to the gunfire as the world waited for the “inevitable”. But that never happened. It never happened because Ukrainians put their lives on the line to defend their land, never took a step back when the talking heads over this part of the world blathered about humiliating Putin and whether they should send helmets or weapons as a form of help.

Jesus fuckin wept.

Ukraine deserves the help of the west, they deserve a hell of a lot more than they are getting, because when others ran, they stood and fought.

Where are these newer weapons, planes and missiles they have managed to buy recently? Are you referring to the equipment they're taking back off Belarus? Or equipment they're buying from China? I haven't seen evidence of the latter but they've certainly been enabling transactions to take place recently. I'm sure satellites are watching though and any large hardware purchases from the Chinese would be picked up.

China, Russia Open Cross-Border Bridge Amid Sanctions, Criticism (voanews.com)

Interesting story from Russian newspaper Kommersant that new banknotes cannot be introduced into circulation as they cannot update their ATMs and cash registers (because of the sanctions). Speculation is that this could take years.

Seems all of Russia has been cluster bombed.

I would hate to see another Crimean war scenario of western countries actually invading Russian held territory but i think Nato has to escalate the situation regarding getting the grain out and not allowing Russia to steal it and give it to their allies. If the current situation continues im sure we will alot more immigration from Africa and other places facing food shortages to Europe weakening the European Alliance.

Another aspect to this is how Russia will support Belarus when they run out of disposable cash, let alone rebuild Mariupol etc.

is there any other indication from anywhere, that this may be true?