The territory gain doesnt translate directly into losses of men. It is true that they were outgunned by artillery but the entire point of the defensive strategy was to let russians inside to than encircle the forces and cut off supply chain and deal massive casualties. This strategy is know since dawn of men made warfare: Defense in Depth and it was employed as you can easily see on any war reports and territory taken. Ukrainian troops were literally leaving the territory behind just to stretch out the assault. Many people died, yes, but then the territory taken didnt change significantly into both sides.

Your counterpoint for my argument about ease of defense compared to offense doesn’t hold itself. You were first implying that all prolonged statical warfares had casualties close to 1:1. I said its not true because 1. Defending is easier, 2. History tells that 1:1 ratio doesn’t have to be true. Meanwhile you told me that because in FIRST year ukraine wasnt properly armed, they were suffering big time casualties in first year. It is true, yes, but it doesn’t at any point hold against my argument, because as you aaid the war is prolonged and statical. In attrition wars statistically speaking the first year is much worse than upcoming years, but its still isn’t deciding year on casualties and we were takjing precisely about this. Basically: You said in long wars ratio goes to 1:1. I said in prolonged wars it isnt always true, because defending is easier. You said that in first year Ukrainians were outgunned hence big loses. I thought we were talking about entire casualties not just first year? Defending is hard when outgunned but it stopped being the case when ukrainians got armed by usa and eu. Can you see the problem? My argument still holds for the rest of the campaign so 3/4 of the war.

Russia is winning the war. I never said Russia doesn’t. Ukraine is definetly suffering more than Russia, but the entire was is idiotical and won’t help russia in long term.

They’re keeping the war, because if they stop the war because War Infustry level was pulled in russia and they’re working on war economy. In 4-5 years they will be back with their military, trained personel (with knowledge from previous war not just som detatched doctrine from 20y ago) and they will just attack once again. Why wouldnt they attack again if they will be stronger and have bigger advantage than last time? The only thing holding Russia back will be usa empty promises, when we both know that both russia and usa guaranteed indepedence to ukraine when ut got rid off nuclear bombs. We can clearly see that such agreements dont hold ground and ukrainians are just taught by violence that they cannot trust peace guarantees.

Now Ukraine is basically counting on miracle of UE and USA sanctions + some artillery damage to oil and gas industry will be dealing so much damage to russias economy that some oligarchs will stop Kreml because it will stop being a profit for the oligarchs from heavy industry and they will just stand back and say: We dont support that shit anymore.