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Putin says Ukraine's statehood at risk if pattern of war continues
(www.reuters.com)
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this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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Fun fact: Ukraine has re-captured more than 50% of the territory Russia occupied since the last time Putin made this ridiculous threat.
This is very true. Unfortunately, the Russians have had time to build some significant defense lines and the Ukrainians don't have the manpower to waste like Russia does. Generally, a defender has a significant advantage and an attacking force needs to use a lot more resources. Attackers have to move forward, generally in the open, and then build new defenses themselves. The Russian approach to breaking defenses is scorched earth. Flatten a city and overwhelm defenses and take the city. However, they are having to use North Korean artillery shells now so that doesn't imply very good things about their domestic supplies and not allowing them to use as much artillery. (Rumors are that the lack of good barrel replacements combined with shoddy NK artillery shells have led to some interesting failures.)
The lines have been fairly static for a while now, unfortunately. Aside from occasional larger pushes from Russia, it's mainly been lots of skirmishes and the front lines getting pushed back and forth.
Southwest Ukraine is just weird right now. The Ukrainians jumped the Dnieper a bit ago but haven't really moved much after that. However, Russia has lost quite a few aircraft because of that move as it allowed Ukranian air defense to move much closer.
While this sounds a little grim, it kinda is. What Ukrainians do have is the ability to hold their current ground well against Russia and continue to let Russia waste resources. Ukrainians also have much more accurate weapons and better intelligence. This allows them to hit targets that hurt and see troop concentrations well ahead of any attack.
Edit: I should add that while the sound bites of one side gaining x% of land over another sound nice, it's not usually the complete picture. The tankie counter to the "50% gain" is usually a twisted version of what I wrote above and with much less of the "why". If you change the timeframe a hair, it's easy to show land gains in the Russians favor. It's all about how data is presented and what type of battle is currently being fought.
This whole comment is predicated on Russians having some kind of defender's home field advantage which itself is a false premise and there goes the whole argument. There are no Russian supply lines in the eastern territories out of striking distance of Ukrainian combined forces anymore, which is why Putin has returned to terror bombing civilian populations regularly. He needs to create political leverage for negotiations before his occupiers siege themselves to death.
Edit: added "anymore"
Just the opposite? Ukrainians have the home field advantage, of course, and they are reinforcing the west as well. The surovikin line in the southeast seems like a royal pain still and the Russians are quite fortified there. The longer Russians occupy a territory, the longer they have to build up their own defenses. (That creates a "home field advantage" of sorts.)
I also eluded to Ukrainians having the intelligence and accuracy advantages which aligns with what you are saying about destroyed supply lines, especially around Avdiivka. There have been many videos of armor getting destroyed way in advance of any possible attack in that area and Avdiivka still stands as a result.