Public sentiment surrounding the Russia-Ukraine conflict is polarized and complex, reflecting deep frustration about human suffering and the prolonged nature of the war. While some express support for Russia's actions and a desire for historical reunification, others highlight the dire humanitarian impact and criticize leadership decisions on both sides. Many commenters exhibit skepticism regarding media narratives and governance, emphasizing accountability, and a longing for peace amidst the chaos. Overall, the prevailing feelings lean towards hopelessness and cynicism, as escalating casualties contribute to a sense of stalemate.

Ukrainian Leadership

Russian Leadership

Western Allies

International Media

Russia can probably continue to gradually make reasonable small gains in the east. Little else meaningful will happen until some sort of ceasefire is negotiated.


Obviously, Russia will want to retain those areas, and obtain formal concession of Crimea, in any such deal. 

[deleted]

Russia has slowed down a little the last couple of months, but broadly they've been attacking and making gains in the east of Ukraine, although it's hard to overemphasize how small the land gains have been. 

Russia definitely is seeing some equipment being depleted, but that mostly means they're using worse equipment (like civilian cars instead of armored vehicles). But overall it's fairly close to a stalemate right now. Ukraine is struggling with getting enough troops and it's unclear what support will continue to come from their allies in western Europe and the US (particularly the US). Right now Trump is talking tough against Russia and Putin, but he is nothing if not inconsistent.

clenom

It’s been a stalemate for over 2 years and neither side is giving up anytime soon

okbuddy05

Germany collapsed in WW1 because of its economy, not its military. This possible outcome should be taken into account.  
  
 Russia has made only little meaningful progress over the past year and it has been slowing. This has cost many Russian troops and much material whilst Ukraine has been relatively efficient in keeping losses down.

It would have been worse if Ukraine had gained land but at huge cost hence this isn't a terrible outcome for Ukraine.

Despite the troop losses, the is evidence Russia has built up troops for a summer offensive, this could explain the recent slowing of the front line. From the numbers we have Russia has managed a decent increase in tank production during the war though this doesn't appear on the battlefield. This could be for various reasons, including stockpiling. From satelite data this isn't clear, however.

At this point ending the war doesn't suit either side. Ukraine will be strongest if Russia's economy fails and the Russian economy is now dependent on the war given its level of arms production (reverting to apeace time economy will cause pain, check out the British economy circa 46-50). Russia's economy is also very dependent on its oil and gas revenues which is sensitive to the global shocks. Currently the war is costing about 8% of Russia's GDP which is somewhat sustainable but it goes into the territory of Germany during WW1 if there is a collapse of the hydrocarbon markets. If Ukraine can hold up till then the outcome of the war may look a lot more favourable than it does now.

ReasonRiffs

One great way to understand what is actually happening on the ground, IF YOU SPEAK THE LANGUAGES, is to follow Telegram channels of actual people on the ground. From the start of the conflict, I’ve followed 3 Ukrainian military channels and 3 Russian military channels on Telegram. This always gives me a pretty accurate and detailed account of what is happening. And it is usually VERY different from reporting in MSM.

bluejaykanata

Russia is gaining some land, albeit these are extremely small gains at a catastrophic cost in terms of both personnel (via "meat storms") and equipment. The country is scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of recruitment, with new recruits enticed with astronomically high payments (which they wouldn't offer if people enlisted en masse) and via tricking people (generally from the lowest socioeconomic classes) into enlisting onto the front lines after promising rearguard assignments.

Drones have been an absolute game changer that history books will talk about for decades to come. 20th century style tank columns and large infantry massings are impossible to assemble because they get obliterated by drones. Ukraine currently dominates the "lower sky" via drones (as opposed to the "upper sky," the domain of fighter jets), though there are worrying indicators that Russia is about to massively upscale their drone production, which might turn the battle in their favor.

At the moment, it can be said that both sides are losing in an atrocious war of attrition, where Ukraine is indeed losing land, even if at a very low rate, yet Russia is sustaining much higher relative casualties and its economy is straining at the seams. However, as Russia is still a much larger nation and simply has more sheer resources to throw into the meat grinder, Ukraine's success still depends greatly upon Western support. That is why both Putin and Zelensky jockey for Trump's support, even though neither one, how can I put it mildly, thinks highly of him.

Edit: Russia also heavily invests into propaganda on all levels - from entirely state-controlled mass media down to the lowest level, where organizations such as Lakhta pay a meager sum (typically a few rubles) per social media post to propagandist "farms" typically staffed by uneducated, desperate young people with few other employment options. I tried to keep my original post as neutral as possible, but even that has so far attracted at least two persons who appear to be exactly those sorts of persons. I loathe to be the guy that accuses people of being "bots" and "paid shills" for disagreeing with me, but seriously, look at their post histories and make your own conclusions. I could be wrong about my take on these guys, of course, but one of those two, in a recent Russian-language post in a different subreddit (you can use Google translate for yourself), **is literally, openly, convincing a job-seeking 16-year-old Redditor to join the Russian army** ffs.

Note how even posts that say that "both sides are in trouble" are to be ridiculed and suppressed. The only rhetoric allowed is where Russia is triumphantly winning; anything less than that is literally subject to investigation and punishment by the authorities. As evidence in this particular case, look at their issue with my word choice. The term "meat storm" was coined by Russian soldiers themselves, who frequently use it in numerous, publicly accessible social media channels (primarily Telegram), referring to relentless human wave attacks that they are pressed into. On the other hand, the term "meat storm" is explicitly forbidden from use in state-sanctioned media. As such, its mention even in otherwise neutral posts serves as an effective tripwire to lure out state-employed posters, who literally scour social media for such trigger words (as they, too, want to stay efficient in their post-for-hire field of work). Guess what was the single, shared term that triggered the two Redditors below me?

Atwenfor

My guess is that the war won't end without one side collapsing. No happy ends.

Alimbiquated

Russia is nothing like first year if war, much more coordinated, logistics working well, more accurate artirelly and missile attacks, better equipped troops. 


They moving sliw but once they capture they git that place, ukraine army not able to counter attack abd capture positions as they barely holding their hevly prepared defance lines. 

LogicalOperation1461

Russia can wage this war for much longer than Ukraine. If the US and Europe do not help Ukraine, Russia is more likely to win, but with huge losses.

Unfortunately, judging by trends, americans and europeans in general don't give a damn about anything.

I have friends from Russia and Ukraine. All the US and European sanctions have mainly hit the ordinary people. They didn't harm Putin or the Russian military-industrial complex in any way.

The Russians are circumventing all Western sanctions, through Asian countries, the Middle East, and even many European countries are helping Putin.

Swift_141

This is a war of attrition. It will end when one side or the other literally can't fight anymore. There are a lot of ways that could happen, and it's not possible to predict which one will happen first. Negotiated settlement is not really possible with Russia because Russia does not honor its agreements and because their unwavering stated position is that Ukraine must stop existing as an independent country. So it can stop when the government of Ukraine falls, or it can stop when Russia runs out of money or artillery.

swcollings

If you want to invest an hour to hearing someone talk about data rather than propaganda I recommend Perun. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf2vSoWsmgI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf2vSoWsmgI) The numbers he worked with is based on visually confirmed data as in satellite images that showed equipment destroyed as well as the state of Ukrainian/Russian stockpiles as you can literally see the giant yards of old Russian tanks being pulled to be fixed/scrapped for parts. As for economic indicators he is using things like the amount of light being emitted from Russian cities, wait times in hospitals and other meta data to look at the state.  
The last comprehensive update was 6 months ago so I'll sum up the conditions at that time first. The Russian economy and stockpiles were in a bad state but still 4-6 years away from anything close to a collapse. As for the war front, even with the acceleration of the Russian advance if they kept up that accelerated rate it would take them 15 years to reach their war goal. If US support kept at Biden levels then the Russians would have likely capitulated after more than a half decade longer of bloody warfare.   
Now that Trump has canceled both new aid and even already promised but not delivered aid, pushed an intelligence blackout that collapsed the Ukraine offensive and eased restrictions on the Russian economy the war has switched momentum. I haven't seen the new numbers but it seems to me that Russia is likely to take over the territories it wants in less than a decade and should be able to keep from total collapse longer than that.

Low_Engineering_3301

Both sides are bleeding troops and equipment while going approximately nowhere. Russia has more troops and equipment to draw on, but Ukraine has superior technology and more foreign assistance. Having fewer troops available, Ukraine is trying to substitute drones for troops wherever possible, and somewhat succeeding insofar as Russia's advances are really slow and cost way more blood.

Russia could collapse at any moment if something happens economically or politically, but they're a more independent and resilient country than a lot of critics gave them credit for. I don't think there's any route out of this that goes well for them, but that doesn't mean they can't potentially keep it up for a few more years.

green_meklar

Nobody knows. And nobody will know until the war has been over for atleast 10 years. That is my opinion. Anything you read here is biased pro russian or pro Ukrainian information given by either the ukrainian government or the russian government. Actually I doubt we will ever know for sure. You just pick a side and go with what they say I guess.

Famous-Equivalent-89

The war is in the same place it has been for about 2 years now: *Russia is making constant incrimental gains at a truly horrendous cost in lives and material.*

Long term, this will destroy Russia. They were still suffering the demographic disaster from WW2. This war will be felt for generations into the future. But that doesn't change the fact that this tactic works, at least if all you care about is the short and medium term. In the short and medium term it is very successful. 

How long can they keep this up? I honestly don't think anyone can say. These pressures build asymmetrically, like the pressure before an earthquake. Like the Big One in Cascadia, everyone knows *eventually* it's going to go, but predicting when exactly is nigh impossible. Russia might collapse tomorrow, it might be able to keep this up for another ten years. Can Ukraine keep this up for another ten years? No. We need to send them a lot more help.

Least-Moose3738

r/UkraineRussiaReport is currently probably the most neutral source of information about war.

Basically, around 3-4 days ago Russia retaliated against Ukraine for their attempt of disrupting Moscow airports (”Make Russian civilians pay”) and didn't stopped yet, sending hundreds of drones into Ukraine, as Russia really increased production of drones. And I think yesterday overall Russian gains were like 50km², which is much more than what was a norm a few weeks ago. 

But it's today days, not tomorrow, and it's still mainly stalemate. Overall situation is that Ukraine is losing, but on very little rate. Both sides couldn't reach peace, because Russia believes Ukraine will lose anyway; Ukraine believes that Russia will be exhausted before they would manage to win.

If you want to know actual facts, don't purely believe Western news and don't purely believe Russian news. Both of them were proved to be just pure shit propaganda that other side will fail in the next week, and if didn't happened, they would say that again the next week.

Flashy-Emergency4652

Russia is winning the war. Unless the West gives Ukraine massive support, which isn't going to happen, it's going to continue to slowly lose people and land. 

Dapper-Lab-9285

No idea — but we know Trump is sucking Putin’s cock

MangoDry7358

It's one of those things where in hindsight, the winner was always obvious, but we don't have all the information future viewers will have. Like how in WWII, Germany was always going to lose badly, but nobody knew that at the time and it took a lot of tooth and nail fighting to get that to happen. Thanks Patton, you were a massive asshole, but you were the asshole we needed.

Trick-Midnight-1943

Russia's stated goals were **never** about capturing territory (and territorial gain is how the west measures their lack of success). Russia's stated goal "demilitarisation" is about destroying the potential of the AFU. (i.e. maximising Casualties on the other side).

Russia is getting 30k-40k **volunteers** per month, all of whom get at least six months of training. Ukraine is relying on press gangs for unwilling conscripts, who get at best 2 weeks of training, and many of whom are deserting or surrendering. Russia also have state-owned munitions factories running 24/7, at a loss if necessary, whereas Ukraine relies on "the free market" - and the production of extra 155mm shells is simply "not profitable" for the arms manufacturers in the west.

By these metrics, Russia are definitely "winning". I am not offering an opinion about which side is morally right or wrong, but as US General Omar Bradley said "when the amateurs talk strategy, the professionals talk logistics"

MedeaOblongata

Despite what you hear on TikTok and YouTube … real news outlets still exist, just don’t take any one or two as  100% correct.

geek66

I doubt even Russia knows for sure. Old super powers have a way of finding forgotten reserves.

fwdbuddha

Russia and Ukraine are bombing each other every night with drones and missiles. Russia is slowly gaining ground in the east at a terrible cost in men.

krell_154

Russia is gaining small advantages  thanks to mainly 2 reasons: 1) more manpower than ukraine 2) Usa decreased significantly the amount of equipment that was giving to Ukraine.

Kursk offensive was completely repelled by Russia, even though it costed a lot of lives. This was due to Putin wanting a swift retake in order to start the negotiates without giving Ukraine power for controlling part of Russia.

The economical problem will be for Russia after the war is ended. Russia economy switched to a military economy almost completely. As soon as the war ends, they will have to face the bourden of switching back to civilian economy and re-building all the conquered territories. Meanwhile Ukraine will have a lot of fund from EU and USA in order to re-build it's economy, Russia risk to become even more dependent on China if they want a smooth tranistion.

This is why Europe is fearing for their future. They are foreseeing the possibility where Russia doesn't go back to a civilian economy and instead keeps building up/invest in it's military with the ultimate goal of starting a new war (probably Balcan states or Finalnd). This could also come in a more favourable geopolitcal situation, where the US is busy with China and Taiwan, so that the Nato alliance would be at his weakest point.

Quirky_Ambassador284

The war is not in the near future expected to end. Although Russian military production has risen, it can not effectively replace destroyed equipment and sustain offensive efforts. Ukraine remains dependent on foreign assistance to enhance its defense. The situation remains very volatile, with continuous diplomatic and military events.

princesshugs

Russia has officially stated their goals of the SMO (special military operation).  They will at least continue till they consolidate the land under those four oblasts which had referendums to join the Russian Federation.  Given Ukraine's  recent use of longer-range stand-off artillery and drones that can strike from farther behind the contact lines and the ground incursions into Russian territory, they've stated that they intend to go beyond the four oblasts to set up a buffer zone within central Ukraine.  It may eventually extend all the way to the Dnieper River which is a natural barrier and the territory to the east is mostly open prairie unsuitable for ground operations without air superiority.

I think the war will last well into 2026 since Putin has been very conservative in avoiding losses in what was long ago recognized as a war of attrition intended to exact heavy casualties on Russia and effect regime change per US think tank's policy stated in 2019.  NATO is also fielding more soldiers within Ukraine unofficially in the last year.   They're no longer just officers and units embedded in Ukraine to handle advanced weapons for which Ukraine lacks training.

Officially, the US has stated the war will last for ten years while Putin has stated he has a five-year plan in which he outlined which territories would come under Russian control.

lchoror

There is no way to know the true state of the war. It’s easiest and most objective to look at who’s gaining ground and at what rate, and currently Russia is consistently making small gains in East Ukraine.

Whenever you hear, “x side is about to collapse!” please know that that person is a liar and likely propagandist. Both sides do a lot of work to convince their people, their allies and their enemies that they have the capacity and willingness to fight until victory. Ergo, you cannot truly trust any side at war because they will always state that things are great.

Just for comparison, we have a pretty clear timeline of the defeat of the Nazis, and even with vastly superior intelligence, both the Soviets and Western allies continually predicted the imminent collapse of the Nazi war machine that never came true. Instead, even without oil to run the tanks and the entire population starving, Germany kept up stiff resistance until Berlin was physically captured and a new government formerly surrendered after the entire army was painstakingly ripped apart.

The current war is attritional so it’s even harder to gauge the true state of the war. Either side could suddenly collapse and it wouldn’t be shocking

oby100

jamiecastlediver

I wouldn’t expect to get a reasonable idea of the facts from YouTube or social media in general. I’d favour  a range of the more credible media sources. I like the BBC and The Economist.

NationalTry8466

only one country is getting physically destroyed as a result of this war

BMWM6

A deranged old man is ethnically cleansing his country by sending barely armed ethnic minorities into the teeth of Ukrainian fortified positions.

Olorin_TheMaia

I've long since tired of military experts predicting what's about to happen, or the "facts" of what is happening. 

From what I know of history, many wars don't end on the battlefield, they end when the economy is exhausted or a leader is overthrown.

I don't see this war ending until Putin is ended.

CatnipManiac

I don’t remember who said the following “ the first victim in a war is the truth”.  Remember in a war propaganda is almost as important as the actual fighting.  I will highly recommend to follow Professor John Mearsheimer on YouTube, you will learn a lot about that war and international matters.  Dr Jeffrey Sachs is also good to watch.  Both are saying that Russia is almost in total control of the war.

doroteoaran

Nobody really knows, both sides are lying about how the other side is doing (and about themselves) so it's hard to say. The truth is the first casualty of conflict

To be completely honest, nobody knows. It's propaganda versus propaganda.v

xxiii1800

Russia was in a position to want to avoid the war at all costs at the beginning. Now that they're knee deep into sanctions and have an effective war economy, it's in their best interest to keep the war going and grab as much territory as possible to create a buffer zone without taking the areas that are mostly ethnic Ukrainian which would be too hard to maintain control over. 


The US backed out too late after it was clear they lost the proxy war, so there really is no concession to make.

burrito_napkin

Russia lost 40-50% of the gains they made in the spring of 2022. They are currently taking heavy losses to reclaim ground that they once held.

Experience, doctrine, and a (very) few actual reports tell us that attackers suffer three to five times the casualties as defenders. Russia is having a tough time on a complex battlefield against a well dug in opponent.

KJHagen

Both Russia and Ukraine are losing this war, Russia is just losing a little slower. If you look at the maps from ISW, Russia took a lot of territory early on in 2022, lost a lot of it. And since then realistically there has been extremely little movement. The lines have been practically frozen for over 2 years. 

Both sides are facing manpower issues. I think this is obvious and we'll understood from the Ukrainean side, but frankly more complicated, but less understood from the Russian side. Honestly there is enough research out there on the topic that you could write a book on it, which I don't intend to do here. But basically Russia is struggling to get volunteers to fight in the war. It does have a draft, but conscripts are by Russian law not to be used outside of Russia. Yes the authoritarian regime could violate its own rules, but in doing so it risks alienating it's people and thus risks regime security. One of Putin's biggest fears is a color revolution in Russia that violently removes him from power like Gaddafi in the Arab Spring. Additionally when the war ends Russia is likely to face major issues in demobilization and unemployment as defense spending goes back down, similar to what the Soviet Union experienced after Afghanistan. 

In the realm of Equipment, Russia is losing (if I remember these numbers correctly) about 1,000 pieces of military equipment a year. Thinking tanks, APCs, and artillery. But they are only able to produce 300 a year. So they are having to dip into Soviet stockpiles which are in poor shape anyways. It is estimated that in about a year, certainly less than two they will have depleted the useable stockpile of Soviet equipment. 

As for the economy, Russia's economy is extremely dependent on oil and gas. Prior to the start of the war they used massive oil exports to create a reserve fund, knowing they would invade and be hit with sanctions. They misjudged how long the invasion would last and don't have enough. Their economy also saw a boost early on in the invasion with Europe buying massive amounts of Russian oil ahead of levying sanctions and now shifting to become independent of Russian oil and gas. The sanctions put a price cap on how much Russian oil can be bought for. The cap is $60 per barrel and makes it so Russia can sell but not profit from oil sales. They've used the shadow fleet to sell to new markets, namely China and India, but in order to be competitive they've had to sell to them at about $30 a barrel. So they are making more than sanctions intend, but their economy is not thriving. 

This is where a lot of those assessments come from, but the more important thing is that the status quo is not sustainable. But for Russia to actually collapse like some predict assumes they do nothing different for the next year or so and just walk off this very obvious cliff.

WTI240

Russia isn't on the brink of collapse, but the war has proven that their military capabilities are wholly dependent on subsidizing their war-making efforts with masses of manpower.   Their military losses wouldn't be acceptable for any Western military power, yet they keep throwing bodies at the problem.

They HAVE depleted a lot of their later generation fighting machines.  They do have the ability to replenish them, but its just enough to make incremental gains or stalemates and not much else.

They have escalated their technology with drones and such, but not nearly to the level of their Western counterparts.

This war had done a few things:

1.  Russia has not adapted to modern warfare nearly as much as Western nations thought.  They still utilize a lot of "mass humanity" warfare.

2.  They have shown resilience in their military industrial complex by being able to keep their fighting force at replacement levels, despite having to bring Soviet era machinery out of mothballs.

3.  The fact that they are a nuclear power is the only reason any Western nation has any fear of them.  They have proven that they would not be able to wage a successful military campaign against most Western nations that were prepared for war.

Supermac34

How do those commenting know? Where u reading this?

SidneyDeane10

It is a stalemate for the most part at the moment.

Russia advances a bit, suffering horendous losses. Ukraine defending, suffering less losses, but also losses.

Russia's depots will be deplete for some weapon systems in 2025. They still have stock piled some systems.

Once the depots are depleted there will still be weapons in maintenance/production and they will try to increase the production of new wespons.

So the war will not end once Russia has depleted their depots. 

The war will go on and it will still go on for a while, because Russia has not reached any of their main wargoals and Ukraine cannot end the war without western - which really means American - security guarantees likely in the form of troops, since Ukraine will have a very very hard time recovering from the war.

Ask again in 2027.

Former_Star1081

Currently Russia every day gains 5cm^2 of land a day by spending 2000 lives.

(Those figures are made up but the point is lots of people are dying and Russia is making small gains at not appreciable rate)

Willie-the-Wombat

DESTROY THE KERCH BRIDGE

Any nation(s) who have given Ukraine weapons, and is capable of doing it, should.  Once done, the loss of the longest bridge in Europe will be a profound material loss for Putin, and not many PEOPLE will die when it falls.   NATO can still claim they have not "entered" the war.

It will cause immediate loss of supply lines across all of southern Ukraine.

It's a well defended bridge.

**Do 1st world nations have the MILITARY CAPABILITY to destroy it or not?**   Putin feels especially empowered by his confidence that we and our allies cannot.

**I think that knowing whether or not we can destroy it, in spite of its defenses, is a 100 billion dollar question.**   **I think Trump is TOO WEAK as Commander in Chief to do it.**

Homechicken42

Russia is winning. I read a report last week that said most experts think Russia could fight well into 2026 before anything is depleted. Their army is the largest its been since the war. I think the figure was about 300,000 new troops each month (That could be wrong, don't quote me there). Basically, while Russia has had to dip into their soviet stockpile to keep the fight going, they've got a lot of stockpile. They also have a fantastic military industrial base. 

Even the Ukrainians don't think they can take back any land from Russia, let alone continue to hold out against them. The rate of gains for the Russians is slow and steady, but that likely won't hold forever give how many more resources Russia can leverage for the war. Eventually, the lines will collapse or a peace will be found. The real question is how many more people have to die before we get there.

East_Net3994

Russia holds less ground than they did 3 years ago.  Their forces are stretched to the limit trying to use meat wave assaults to gain incremental territory.  Instead of attacking military targets with their missiles they strike at civilian areas to try to push more civilians out of Ukraine. Meanwhile Ukraine is striking military and industrial targets ever deeper into ruzzia.  Aid from Europe is ever increasing.

MiddleAgedGamer1969

Only intelligence agencies know for certain. Both sides of the conflict cannot openly discuss their numbers except to boast. They need their fighters and population to be proud and they need their enemies to fear them.

We do know that a large number of people from both countries have left to avoid the conflict and Russia has resorted to a number of mercenary units as well as North Korean soldiers.

Ukraine also uses western mercenaries, but many would correctly argue it’s the more honourable side to merc for.

MyGruffaloCrumble

I look at it this way. It's undeniable that the much smaller Ukranian military has blunted the Russian bear. Look at the video evidence, Chinese gold carts, Iranian missiles, and older and older Soviet tanks from storage. Confirmed storage bases being emptied.

They can't replace at the rate they are losing. While they still have a sizable military it's painfully obvious that they are being halted and bled of men and equipment. The end goal is the Russians turning on Putin. When? Don't know. But the Ukrainian military has big time stepped up and done amazing.

Prestigious-Box-6492

Don’t trust people online with their own biases and almost certainly no inside knowledge. Find a reliable rag with journalistic integrity such as The Economist and a gate with their content.

EarRough5257

Something like First world war in 1916 or 1917

JonSnow240792

I'll be honest it kind of fell to the wayside over here. I don't here much about it anymore. Last thing i had heard was drone strikes happening in Russia.

largos7289

Both sides are at a stalemate. Russia still has huge personnel and ammunition coming from various partners. They are incorporating outside equipment to. Financially feasible, I doubt, but they are still oil rich. 

Drones are making it hell on both sides, including targeted points in Russian factories 

OppositeAd389

The war has been in a state of attritional warfare since almost the beggining. What this means is that neither side is strong enough to force a breakthrough, so they are both slowly grinding against each other until one side becomes weak enough that a breakthrough can occur. If one side doesn't break down the war is heading for truce. Russia has suffered with depletion of old equipment, but Russian doctrine is built around the idea of a long term war where they might need to replace entire armies. Their production of gear has increased steadily throughout the war, and whether or not they are able to replace all equipment doesn't actually matter. They are more capable of replacing their losses than Ukraine is, which is how an attritional war is won. They are also really good at adapting to strategic and tactical challenges. For instance you haven't really heard anything about HIMARS for a long time because Russian Electronic Warfare has neutered HIMARS badly.

Ukraine isn't doing badly, but it is very much a David vs. Goliath fight and Ukraine can't do well without outside help. Right now it is important for the western powers to send supplies and equipment so that Ukraine can come out of this in as good a position as possible.

I don't believe any videos. We are living in AI era, so you have to question everything you see. And don't forget that everyone can post anything on the internet. The only purpose of this "war" as far as I can tell to increase inflation in Europe. Which is going great, so I don't see why it should stop. This is a really good business for a lot people. And of course here we are on the bad end. Our living standards will be lower and lower after every month. 

fpeterHUN

A comment focused on the economic aspect:

The reality is, Russia has pushed into a partial war economy. They have a house of cards of incredibly high salaries and sign up bonuses for contract soldiers, and ever climbing wages for factory workers connected to the Military industry. Those high salaries and massive cash stimulus into the military economy is keeping a large portion of Russians comfortable, and even an increase in personal living standards and economic standing, despite skyrocketing inflation and interest rates. The government is also essentially bidding against itself in competition, trying to find labour for the the factories versus meat for the front lines. Which is making factory salaries climb to compete with extremely high paying military contracts, and the military is competing with the fantastic salaries factories are offering, for more contract recruits. This is a cash burn for the Federal Government, and for Regional Governments who have quotas to meet for recruiting and also keeping their local military related industries fully staffed. The demand for bodys/labour in Russia is creating a very tight labour market right now.

If Russia stops waging war, which they will at some point, then their economy will collapse. They are currently burning through cash to feed the machine; that cash becoming less valuable every year because they are having to spend more and more per recruit, and per factory worker. They have a lot of means left to find and generate cash flow, but it is not infinite.

Morph_Kogan

Being completely objective is difficult. But what I can tell you is:

Russia is currently assembling troops and equipment to launch a new offensive, highly likely towards Kostyantynivka since taking this city will get them closer towards Kramatorsk and breaching the ukranian fortress belt. To assist with this, they have assembled 30.000 troops in the Kharkiv direction to launch another offensive towards the city. This offensive is in all likelihood a feint meant to keep ukranian troops occupied in the area, far away from Kostyantynivka, meaning fewer troops to defend the city. They also appear to prepare a new offensive towards Pokrovsk. At least several MBTs (a scarce resource for russia) have been seen heading that way.

As for russias equipment stockpile: the reports are true. Russia has almost depleted all of their T-80, T-90, and T-72 stockpiles. The T-90's that they are using now, to my knowledge, are mostly newly manufactured, and there aren't a lot of them. T-80 has almost disappeared from the battlefield. T-72 is becoming less frequent. T-64 and T-62 are becoming more frequent, suggesting that they are running out of T-72. Russia has also depleted a lot of their BMP-1 and 2, though I am unsure how many they have.

Russia has resorted to using civilian vehicles for troop transportation because these are cheaper and more available at a high pace.

As for their economy: who actually knows? Sure doesn't help that Trump is promising them trade deals and lifting sanctions before the war ends. Additionally, there are many nations that are helping Russia circumvent sanctions, such as Turkmenistan, who has increased their trade with Germany with over 1000% (think it was them at least). Suspicious? India is also helping by buying a lot of oil, and the same goes for China. This is, however, revenue that Russia might have made anyway, but at least they aren't gaining as much from the deals as they would otherwise.

SimonArgead

Okay, I might be biased cuz I'm russian, but I can say for sure that Russia is slowly taking Ukrainian territories. Afaik Ukraine struggles with manpower, they just don't have enough people. Currently it's a war of attrition and Ukraine slowly loses it, support from NATO and EU is the only thing that can help Ukraine to not lose this war completely

Prophet_Martyrius

The interesting part first - the black swan for Russia might be the death of Kadyrov. Chechnya, one of the Russian regions, actually is a former county with their own language, culture and history. There were several Chechen wars in modern times. And this Kadyrov is one of Chechen bandits, who rules the region suppressing it under the  Russian power. If he dies, it might be an unstable situation there, because this region is basically a Russian small Afghanistan "at home". 

The boring part is - Russia is still pushing, very slowly, with huge human losses, taking 50 km of the land per year. They are experiencing a shortage in troops and vehicles. China and Nothern Korea are helping them with ammo, drones, and sometimes troops.

The Ukrainian side has the same problem but differently. EU and US allies have many resources but there is no guarantee those resources will come to Ukraine. So each time there are long negotiations and some % of help from what Ukraine actually needs.  

Trump showed himself as a fool who can only speak and "believe in Putin's words", he refused to push Russians with sanctions and increased help for Ukraine. Will see, now things might change a bit, I heard that the US is preparing new sunctions and finally has a determination to push Russians. 

Will see. We are all waiting. This summer Russians are going to attack and take as much as they can, but this fall, winter and maybe next year things might change a bit. Especially if the US decided to the end this war and make confident actions.

majakovskij

Both sides will contribute everything to the last great offense this summer i think. A serious negotiation is coming and all they want is something at the table. 

I can't tell the truth about Russians weapon storage, no one can make sure about their production ability. But the long war always affect the society and hit like a truck to economy, as much as people morale.

But Russians are notoriously stubborn and resilient, a relentlessly war machine. They're always worse when being underrated and better when being overrated. Losing thousands of tanks or hundred thousands soldiers surely won't stop them

DoJebait02

The situation is both volatile and also quite the stalemate.

Russia has been on the continuous press for the past year or so, and due to this has made small yet consistent gains on a daily/weekly basis. The fighting at the moment is on a more tactical scale, so we're talking individual fields, roads, villages etc, but it's still a continuous loss to Ukraine in terms of territory. However, this also comes at a high cost to Russia in terms of manpower &amp; equipment too which isn't feasible in the long-term.

Ukraine is suffering from manpower problems simply due to being a smaller population, and due to a lack of wanting to conscript 18-25 year olds (their demographics are fucked alongside Russia). Unfortunately, they're almost entirely dependant on foreign aid from both the US and Europe in terms of defense capability.

It's a high likelyhood that peace of any flavour won't be arranged in the near future, and the conflict will continue for the next few years at least. 

Russia wants to occupy territory/Oblasts its yet to control, and isn't taking any potential peace talks seriously (i.e making demands which Ukraine would never accept on the worst of days). 

But on the flipside, Ukraine isn't willing to cede land for obvious reasons, even though there's a neglible chance it's going to retake any territory which Russia now holds, as neither side can field the large maneuvers which were common enough in 2022/23, and these are what's needed to retake vast swathes of land.

I know somebody else has mentioned it, but the r/UkraineRussiaReport is a pretty good source for both sides, as it uses Telegram posts which are often the best source for direct information (both Ukrainian &amp; Russian). 

There's also one user who posts weekly updates in great details for map changes/happenings.

Carinwe_Lysa

Depends A LOT on who you ask and who people belive. 

collective mind of r/UkraineRussiaReport/ could pinpoint you somewhat like neutral position (note I said \_collective\_ mind - check flairs here)

anyway, as I see it (please note that my flair in r/UkraineRussiaReport is NOT 'Neutral') :

Ukraine: have big issues with recruiting people for war (men 18+ y/o are forbidden to travel outside, there are a lot of clips about forced recruiting). UAF somehow manage to train them enough so they don't surrender as soon as they are near frontlines. What remains of power grid is used for what little economy UA still have. They have some distributed solar and their NPPs(Russia didn't attack what remains of grid because it would mean UA needs to shutdown NPPs). They mostly keep front. 

Russia: manufactures everything it needs for war (some components are imported from China), tries very hard not to use conscripts (both UA and RU have military consription) outside of 'old' Russia. Recruits a lot of people in army by paying a lot of money, also recruits a lot of people to military factories (unlike USA/EU, Russian military industry is mostly state owned and NOT private owned). Prices...let's say that official inflation have nothing to do with reality.

Russia slowly advances. Very slowly. As if idea is to exterminate as much of UAF as possible.

vikarti_anatra

Its a 'war of attrition' meaning ukraine loses about 2 weeks after the west pull their support. 

How much money is the west willing to burn through for a country that is not an ally?

We are going to find out

aTalkingDonkey

&gt;What are the actual facts?

Russia is neither collapsing nor being depleted, its preparing another major offensive whilst advancing on multiple fronts and opening new ones. Data on exchange of bodies are publicly available and its nothing pretty (909 fallen Ukrainians for 34 Russian corpses during the may exchange), obviously the ratios shouldn't be taken at face value as the attacking side will have more opportunities to capture enemy corpses, but even accounting for that...shitsfuckedman.

Russians are tough bastards that will often fuck up early war, but can muscle through hardships. They have suffered serious casualties but not at the level where it would discourage them from continuing the war, on the contrary the leadership wants to see results for those casualties (aka sunken cost fallacy). Ukrainians are equally bull-headed, unfortunately Americans are not; they are flimsy and will only support their proxies as long as it doesn't hurt or they can reap benefits from it.

Body exchange numbers mean nothing. Cause Russia gains land and can evacuate bodies easily. Which is not the same for Ukraine.

Sharp_Impression_916

Over the past 2 years the balance of power had been slowly going towards the Russian favor.

1.Manpower issue.Russia is obviously a large and populous country and since late-2022 they didn't need to mobilise anybody to fill their ranks.It is estimated that 20k-40k volunteers sign up for the Russian army and the force deployed in Ukraine had been steadily growing since the beggining of the war.

On the Ukrainian side it got worse.The number of volunteers had dropped to around 7k people (according to the Ukrainian TCC) so considerable majority of people coming to the Ukrainian army are mobilised/mobiks which obviously dont perform too well.Lack of manpower also halted creations of new brigades (150/160-series) aswell as ability for soldiers to rotate which indirectly caused increased desertion rates.

2.Russian gains were always slow but recently it had changed.Recently Russians achived first real breakthrough since late 2022 between Pokrovsk and Kostyantinivka in Donetsk oblast taking considerable amount of land at relatively low casualties.New axis of attacks had been opened as well (Sumy oblast,restart of Volchansk offensive,Bilohorivka,Zaporozhye)

3.Ukrainians are unable to go on the offensive.Ukrainians went from huge counter-attacks in 2022 that recaptured whole oblasts to limited/costly offensives in 2023 to NOTHING in 2024-2025 (There could be an argument for Kursk but the operation was pretty dumb and backfired greatly)

4.There's little the West can Do without full scale war with Russia....there's no "wonder weapon" in NATO arsenal that if given to the Ukrainians would change much.There's no real lacks in the Ukrainian army except for maybe ammo/drones...it's as simple as being overrun by more populous enemy.

5.Russia learns from it's mistakes.It would take very long to explain everything in detail but the Russian army in 2022 is a completely diffrent thing than it used to...Tactics,command chain,equipment,effectivenes and adaptability had improved greatly...so If Ukrainians weren't fighting a competent-organised enemy in 2022...they do now

6.Russia is able to outlast Ukraine.Obviously Russia can't go forever due to magnitude of reasons but it's gonna take years before Russian army is going to start to fall apart...But Ukrainian army had been seeing "cracks" for months already,the attrition aspect is really not in their favour

Yes I'm autistic as shit yes I'm willing to debate these points Yes I do have a life

Edit:Some people say the advances slowed down but it's not due to widespread exhaustion of Russian forces rather than due to poor weather and softening up Ukrainian defences.There was a long period of very little movement a minute ago but it had ended and Russians are back on the offensive with expected further gains in very near future

O-bese

China's official position is to remain neutral between Russia and Ukraine, believing that the eastward expansion of NATO has undermined Russia's security demands, which has led to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. As for the Chinese people, I don't know what politicians or scholars think, but from my experience chatting with my family, friends, and colleagues, people's direct impression of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is that "Russia has adopted too rough and reckless means, Ukraine is a fool who blindly believes in and approaches the West, and the West uses Ukraine to destroy Russia."

luoyeqiufengzao

No TV station dares to say this, it doesn't align with the official stance. But when it comes to independent media, it's hard to say - I don't have statistics, but I feel like 60% of people support Russia, 30% support Ukraine. The remaining 10% hold other views.

Sorry_Sort6059

Chinese people are just having pure hatred against NATO. Period. Anyone who are pro NATO or want to join NATO is potentially our enemies. The bloody day of NATO bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade will never be erased from Chinese people's memory.

You want CHINA to support someone who is eagerly to join NATO so it can become a part of the bully fucks? NEVER GONNA HAPPEN

groovyoung

I fully support the Ukrainian side for defending their country. But I do see the Russian side of this also. NATO was never supposed to be in the countries that were former Eastern soviet block. The west promised this then broke that promise. 

With such aggressive stance from western countries towards Russia it makes sense that they ran out of options to keep themselves safe. 

Ask US if Cuba still deserves to be treated so badly after almost 60 years

Capital_AT

China was demonized by reddit, always reminding T square, Uyhgurs, Taiwan etc.. including lying and exaggerating.  Basically western (nato) talking points. 

But now they have surprised pikachu face why China isn’t trusting them and don’t sanction Russia

miranaphoenix

Officially, China isn't strictly pro-Russia. China is like Nobita, who sells baseball bats to both Gian (the bully) and Suneo (the victim) while they're in the middle of a fight. Of course, you can argue that not sanctioning Russia is a form of support, and I wouldn't disagree with that.

On the public level. Yes, the pro-Russia voices are much louder. I think it boils down to a few key factors (in order of importance):Nationalist sentiment that is strongly anti-US and anti-NATO. A sort of nostalgia for the Soviet Union. A kind of Social Darwinist mindset comes from a deep-seated historical lesson in China: "if you are backward, you will be beaten." (落后就要挨打)

Ok-Tangerine-3358

I mean with [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1axv9st/ua_pov_we_are_ready_to_stand_shoulder_to_shoulder/?share_id=L18WsVrQ4nWpaRmL_wFo6&amp;utm_content=1&amp;utm_medium=ios_app&amp;utm_name=ioscss&amp;utm_source=share&amp;utm_term=1) and [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/16h02gn/ua_pov_india_and_china_have_low_intellectual/?share_id=5Oxu6hW9shizw_c8KMEK3&amp;utm_content=1&amp;utm_medium=ios_app&amp;utm_name=ioscss&amp;utm_source=share&amp;utm_term=1) comming out of Ukraine goverment, idk what Chinese opinion should be.

R1donis

Russia has also taken loads of Chinese land.   

Oli99uk

TLDR: I prefer that Russia does not invade Ukraine, it's bad. But now that the war is already going on, I have no choice but to hope Russia wins.

Elaboration: China used to have good relations with Ukraine, buying many Soviet techs from them in the 1990s. And the war disrupts China's economic plans. Not to mention the basis of Russian argument for a independent East Ukraine since 2014 is with "ethnic self-determination". If the same logic is applied to other country, then all multi-ethnic countries should cease to exist. The West uses the exact same strategy to groom Tibetan and Uyghur separatists in China. President Tokayev of Kazakhstan, even if they're Russian ally, he also expressed concerns over this, because he has ethnic Russian people in his country too. Therefore, Russia is doing the same thing their enemies do, and we don't like that. However, since the war already started, NATO is behind Ukraine. NATO always antagonize China and uses the exact same strategy on us. I don't want China to be split into 7 pieces as they wanted, so I can't get behind the side with NATO. Therefore, overall I'm like trying to be neutral, but can't help leaning towards Russia a bit. I think the official stance of Chinese government is not that different from mine. Of course, by saying NATO I'm mainly referring to US and its anglosphere brethren, I have nothing against Greece for example even though it's part of NATO.

SectorRatioGeneral

This comment section made me think r/askchina is full of westoids rather than chinese themselves. The balatant US/NATO bias is a huge tell they are not Chinese.

ClueOwn1635

But I find it hypocritical that NATO (ie the US) has put missiles and forces in multiple countries around Russia but get in a panic when Russia tries to do the same. 

The war is basically the result of prejudice and backing them into a corner

Emotionally, I think this is an undoubted tragedy. Two former brotherly countries speaking similar languages ​​have become life-and-death opponents, and countless people who share similar cultures kill each other and die.

Simple_Original2320

We are very pragmatic people, and geopolitics is as pragmatic as it can get. China is pro-Russia doesn't mean it support Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It's simply that China and Russia has aligned geopolitical interest. The same logic, US and EU are pro-Ukraine doesn't mean they support what Ukraine stands for, it's simply because they have geopolitical interest opposite of Russia.

The sad part is while Ukrainians are dying and they think they are dying for their country, in fact, they are dying for a geopolitical contest between Russia and US/ EU. They think they are smart enough to play a power balance game between NATO and Russia, but when the dust is settled, no one will care about the interests of Ukrainians. 

One day, Ukrainians will wake up regretting not staying irrelevant in the geopolitical contest between Russian and US/EU.

statyin

The Ukrainians fully bought into Western lies about EU and NATO membership and antagonised Russia every which way they can. They allowed themselves to be used as a proxy against Russia, this is expected.

piscator111

I am in China (Not Chinese), I had this discussion, and upon asking "who attacked who" - answer: Ukraine, they  "attacked" due to the approach to the west. To the question from my side: Can we agree that Ukraine is a sovereign country - the answer "no"

Miserable-Win-6402

The Slavs (whether Russian or Ukrainian), when life gets a bit too comfortable, turn into a bunch of lazy drunkards. But when their country is threatened, they unleash astonishing energy. So why provoke them again and again?  

ParticularDiamond712

Opinions are mixed mostly because China cannot directly condone Russia’s actions

Actively supporting Russia’s annexation of a sovereign Ukraine would be weaponized against China to justify Taiwan independence, that a sovereign country’s territorial integrity can be violated 

This was why Macron drew so much derision comparing Taiwan to Ukraine in the recent Defence conference in Singapore. Taiwan and Ukraine are completely opposite sides of the spectrum of the concept of territorial integrity; and trying to compare the two is extremely hypocritical

danorcs

Agreeable-Heart3479

I’m entirely with Ukraine, no country should be invaded by a foreign power. But anyone who says NATO isn’t a threat to Russian interests is just delusional. It’s like they’re forgetting what the mission of NATO started as. That isn’t to say Russia’s goals are even 1% justified, but you do have to understand their PoV to understand why they decided to invade. Russia has always, and will always be an expansionist empire. NATO was specifically made to counter the Soviet Union’s aggression. And today’s Russia has basically the same foreign policy as the Soviet Union, except Soviet leaders were generally less rash than Putin.

It’s not hard to see how from an imperialist, revanchist view, NATO is preventing Russia from exercising control over its former sphere of influence. This is rather hypocritical for NATO to do, when the US is stationing tens of thousands of troops in Korea, Japan, and Germany. Russia thinks that the US is on a high horse preventing Russia from terrorizing small neighbouring countries while the US does the same thing across the planet.

danielisverycool

China sees it as NATO inching closer to Russia, justifying a pre-emptive strike from Russia. Same justification for China helping NK against US.

Nervous-Tangerine638

Basically, China is neutral and still ships dual purpose goods to US, Ukraine, and Russia.

So, they can continue their war efforts with each other, and China creates an opportunity to pull ahead.

random_agency

CCP should send their red guards to help Russia, they called it “长津湖第二！”

East-Lobster-6467

The chinese government probably secretly want Russia to be weakened.  It would give China the option to annex a huge swathe of land north and strengthen militarily close to the U.S. that's what I'd do.

Adogsbite

tshungwee

In short, Russia lack restraint, Ukraine lack brain to know where they are and what they are doing to join Nato. But it's expected as both Slavic ethnically thus same mentality.

mottscottison

Chinese people support Russian for the most part, they think the war is the result of nato provocation and generally sympathetic to Russia plight.  They do think russia shouldn't have invaded and waged the war, and think it is killing too many ukrainian, but they also think ukrain was too eager to be the west puppet.

100862233

The official media in China stays neutral. The neutrality means - pretty much similar with the situation of Switzerland before - China still does business with both countries and (not so actively) urges negotiations and ceasefire, saying that China can be a middle person if both want to sit down and talk.

The business are limited in civil products - but it doesn't mean you won't see them in wars. For example, it's been reported that civil DJI drones have been used by both sides at frontline. It's also true that Russia buys more chinese product than Ukraine due to multiple reasons like a) there are not available sellers for Russia after sanction, b) economical affinity before war time, c) Ukraine tends to use western products etc. 

People's opinion: roughly 60% pro russia and 30% pro Ukraine, 10% neutral.

Note that the proportion is changing with time. Many pro russia people don't really want Russia to win easily. They just want the war going on so that: 
a) Russia has no choice but rely on China more; 
b) NATO countries pay less attention to Asia and don't expand their organization to the far East.

Key_Edge_8841

yajusenpaii

Most people support Russia, while liberals support Ukraine. In China, those who support Russia also support Palestine, and those who support Ukraine also support Israel. The former group either opposes anything Western or unconditionally supports China's interests, while the latter unconditionally supports Western countries. Most Chinese people refer to the latter group as "self-colonizers.

OneNectarine1545

They unthinkingly believe what the propaganda allows them to think, like most political topics in China. Anyone who has “alternative opinions” learned to keep their trap shut a *long* time ago.

ButMuhNarrative

wow, I see pro Ukrainian comments being deleted in here by mods, not by users, by mods. they suddenly completely vanish. if this is true this sub is completely useless.

RangeBoring1371

Chinese look down on Russians - but hate Ukrainians . The love autocracy and hate democracy . China was humiliated when it had to adopt capitalism from the West to survive

giboauja

I remember watching news where ukrainians where saying : "Russia is going to attack? Noo, we are sister nations, we are friends, why would they attack us." next day I watched how ruzzian tank shot at civilians.

uitinis

Chinese state media like to say “Ukraine aggravated Russia, which made them attack”. This is the formal attitude of the Chinese government. CN align with russia to fight US, so they must say it in this way. 

Educated Chinese are not one sided pro-russia. Most of them view Russia as reckless, rough or even self-desctucting. While they do view Russia to be partner in Sino-US conflict, they also recognize that this is an alliance out of convenience. 

As for Ukraine, most of chinese doesnot have strong options. CN and Ukraine used to have a very good relationship, with intensive  military cooperations, but that is about 10 to 20 years ago. CN does not consider Ukraine as an enemy, but with current Sino-US relationship, there is really nothing much we can do.

Slow_Echo1478

Recent developments in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict include Russian military claims of capturing villages in eastern Ukraine, escalating drone strikes from both sides shortly after peace talks.

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