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Comment by Aozora7 | Hacker News Reader

Russia is on equal footing with a country third of its size that is supported by a small fraction of NATO's GDP. You can barely tell the difference between a territorial control map from 2023 and 2026. Neither side is capable of achieving its goals through military action.

Ukraine us unlikely to get back most of the territory it lost in 2022, but Russia is also unlikely to even finish capturing the remaining parts of the Donetsk oblast, let alone the rest of Ukraine. It's taking Russia months/years to capture settlements with just thousands of prewar population. Donetsk oblast still has a heavily fortified urban area with a prewar population of 500k under Ukrainian control.

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>You can barely tell the difference between a territorial control map from 2023 and 2026

Last time I was paying close attention (maybe 8 months ago) the fighting was heavy in Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad, and not yet in Konstantynivka. Now all three of those are well within Russian control. And that seems to be the story all over the front. There may be some temporary regressions, and occasional slow downs, but overall the Russian side is continually pushing.

> It's taking Russia months/years to capture settlements with just thousands of prewar population

They're not moving quickly. That's the way they're choosing to fight the war, and also due to the strength and resilience of the Ukrainian side, along with roughly 300 billion Euros pumped into the war by NATO so far. I don't think the slow methodical approach is evidence of weakness. Taking the average territory capture rate since 2022, the entire Donbas would be under Russian control mid next year. Using only the relatively slow 2026 rates, the entire Donbas would still be under Russian control in less than 5 more years.

Russia isn't slow because it's methodical, it's just throwing all of the bodies it can buy at the problem, and the small advancements they get is what they buy with tens of thousands casualties per month. This is doing significant macroeconomic damage to Russia.

Years to capture Donbass is an absolutely pathetic rate of advance for an army that was supposed to be second in the world, fighting a war on its border.

Ukraine is large and conquering all of it would be a massive challenge for any army, but relative to resources Russia has available to it, its performance is awful.

> third of its size

Russia is about 28 times larger than Ukraine and 10x GDP.

Population-wise, Russia is about 140M+, Ukraine is about ~40M.

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