I have noticed a fundamental shift since the $90 billion was approved by Europe, and while Iran may have been temporarily good for Russia's oil revenue, the Iran drone attacks on neighboring countries have secured a long term economic market for Ukrainian drone weaponry and systems.
The sanctions and economic infrastructure strikes in Russia are steadily degrading their economy, so I sense that Ukrainian upswing in financing and drone production on the upswing has equalized or even passed the downswing of Russian ability to wage the war.
IMO I think Ukraine is in the coming months:
- going to tremendously compromise the Russian ability to stage troops 100 miles from the "front"
- are going to clear out virtually all Russian presence from a corridor to the sea between Mariupol/Melitopol. UKR drones have established "drone superiority" already to the sea and are destroying land supply trucks on the road that are supposed to go to Crimea. The drone superiority will probably be followed by new UKR ground drone forces to clear out the Russian pockets
- will escalate losses further to the Russians across the entire front beyond the already unsustainable levels
- will escalate deep-strike raids on Russian economic infrastructure and remind Russian civilians daily of the war, placing further top political pressure on Putin
While it is unlikely a dramatic collapse of the Russian line will dramatically occur, and I'm not sure all of the Eastern front can be recaptured, I think Crimea may fall in the next year and its recapture would make Ukraine the winner of this war. If they capture Crimea, the remaining Russian "gains" in the East can be ceded in negotiation as a buffer zone.
Crimea cannot be supplied by sea, air, by the Kerch bridge, and now cannot be supplied by the land route. If UKR reaches te sea somewhere on the Melitopol/Mariupol corridor and isolates Crimea, then Crimea's fate is sealed.
I have seen a theory that Russia may view its Western / Ukrainian Eastern front as a maginot line, and might use its comparably superior drone weaponry to attack NATO through the Baltics and into Poland, to try to force Europe from funding Ukraine.
The current situation must be a bit of an embarassment.
sounds more like the other way around when articles pop up panicking about how bad China is for selling civil engineering and infrastucture equipment to the new russian republics