My main rubric is that if one side does something advantageous, they'll brag about it. If they're not bragging, things aren't going so well there. By "they," I mean official channels. I've blocked pretty much all the hysterical keyboard warriors in this thread who have nothing to but shriek and call names. I've also been filtering out retards who are more interested in "winning" than understanding (no, the two sides do not have air parity).
All the Russians seem to be doing is drily listing damage they inflict on the Ukrainians. That suggests to me they haven't had any meaningful strategic or tactical victories in quite some time. The Ukies like to brag about this or that village they took, but they don't like to talk about casualties much, which suggests these victories are hard-won. So overall, I think the narrative that the Ukies are advancing, but at great cost in lives and equipment, is probably correct.
The Russian response to Ukies claiming they deliberately targeted civilians in a terror attack tends to be things like, "release intel showing the Ukies had artillery warehoused 15' away," or "release captured video showing the school was being used as a barracks." Occasionally, we discover the "war crime" was a defensive weapon failure of some kind. The Ukies have a big problem with filming and releasing footage of themselves committing war crimes, and the NATO/Ukie response to Russian claims that they attacked non-combatants tends to be preposterous lies (the Russians shelled their own POW camp!) or censorship. Now, I have no doubt the Russians have their share, because this is war, and war is hell, but this also lends credence to the narrative that the Ukies really are fighting much more viciously and with far less heed toward Geneva than the Russians are. Also throw in the mix the semi-official US doctrine that It's Different When We Do It.
Tales of Russian incompetence, old equipment, corruption, etc, match up with everything we've known about Russia for decades - stories may be exaggerated, but it's not really shocking that the occasional BMP has 35-year-old tires, a conscript got handed an AK that is rusting to pieces, a quartermaster stole the AK-12's optics, sold them on Ali Baba, and replaced them with Airsoft scopes, etc. Same with the Ukies managing to steal rather than use most of the cash aid we send them.
I do think the cause for the war ultimately boils down to NATO being willing to do whatever it takes to take Sevastopol, and Russia being willing to do whatever it takes to keep it, and I have not seen any evidence over the last couple months to change this opinion. To the contrary, I pieced this together on my own, and Putin's recent speech on mobilization just verbalized everything I'd figured out myself.
The USA is about to send them another $50 billion. The equipment isn't precious to them. They are correctly expecting Uncle Sam to replace anything they lose, in no small part because our leaders openly promise this every couple days.
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