Kursk was stopped after small gains and prior to any major captures — with Ukraine losing their best units. That loss has led to cities along the line of battle being captured, including the fortress city of Vuhledar.
There’s now increased talk of Ukraine giving up territory — which is their defeat.
Edit due to rate limit:
You’re citing areas Russia withdrew from during the Istanbul talks as “lost” while ignoring that Russia posses 18% of Ukraine and is advancing.
Russia isn’t losing “more and more control” on any front, they’re forcing Ukraine back — including driving Ukraine from places like Vuhledar they’ve held for the entire war until now.
To use your Canadian analogy:
It would be like if the US seized the 20% of Canada closest to the continental US and then proceeded to shell Canadian army to dysfunction from there — which would be seen as a sane and effective strategy.
Looks like Russia has lost everything but a tiny portion they gained, at immense cost - including the near total collapse of their economy.
And are going to be locked in trench warfare on land they don’t control, with uncertain supply lines, with no air superiority - going into winter.
And is losing more and more control of the little they have left.
This is Russia’s Afghanistan writ large, and will lead to the total collapse of the Russian gov’t (and society) soon.
It’s already nearly destroyed an entire generation of Russian men - in the middle of an already epic demographic collapse.
Don’t get me wrong, this has wrought terrible damage to Ukraine too. But with Russia’s economy (previously) and population being 10x larger, this whole debacle is a huge embarrassment to Russia. Even bigger than the collapse of the USSR.
It would be like if the US went to invade Canada, and couldn’t even hold Ottawa.
Edit to answer your edit: maybe if the 18% was the land near Alaska. And they’re at almost the same amount of land they had control of when this whole mess started. All the major economically productive areas of Ukraine are still under Ukraine’s control.
> including the near total collapse of their economy.
I am not here to shill for Russia, but this is certainly not true. The Russian economy has proven much more resilient than anyone expected since the start of coordinated global sanctions by the world's most developed economies. It is currently growing about 4% per year.
You're not, but given that the IMF is saying 2.6 percent (current), 3.2 percent (projected) -- how does one obtain 4 percent for "current" growth (other than from Russian government figures)?
Kursk was stopped after small gains and prior to any major captures — with Ukraine losing their best units. That loss has led to cities along the line of battle being captured, including the fortress city of Vuhledar.
There’s now increased talk of Ukraine giving up territory — which is their defeat.
Edit due to rate limit:
You’re citing areas Russia withdrew from during the Istanbul talks as “lost” while ignoring that Russia posses 18% of Ukraine and is advancing.
Russia isn’t losing “more and more control” on any front, they’re forcing Ukraine back — including driving Ukraine from places like Vuhledar they’ve held for the entire war until now.
To use your Canadian analogy:
It would be like if the US seized the 20% of Canada closest to the continental US and then proceeded to shell Canadian army to dysfunction from there — which would be seen as a sane and effective strategy.