Read an article with a pretty sobering statistic, the Russians are estimated to have had ~7000 KIA so far in the war which by comparison is more than we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 20 years of war and roughly the same number of Marines and sailors were killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima.
A good buddy in EUCOM who knows far better than me said the other day that he thinks the Ukrainians are doing even better in many cases than what is in the news. With the flood of material that is flowing to the Ukrainian military and more coming I think they will continue to put up a very tough fight.
One lesson I have taken away from seeing what has happened in the air war is just how valuable the training we get throughout our aviation careers and why we do workups and exercises at places like Fallon and Red Flag, where we also have considerable expertise in how we do business. All that training that is second nature to us and our allies but you often forget it is not universal. I am being reminded daily of the saying that "
life is hard, it's even harder if you are stupid" (not John Wayne by the way).
Things are going to start getting worse for Russia and its people on the home front as well, with the effects from the severe sanctions only building as time goes on. While they might try and mitigate some of them, like the seizure of leased airliners, they are only going to delay the inevitable pain. With the airlines they can limp along for a bit cannibalizing planes they will only be able to do so much before they can't even fly at all. The airliner mess is representative of much their economy which will start to suffer under the weight of the sanctions, even extending to their defense industry that has relied on western components for years now. But hey, they will at least have their own version of McDowell's in
Uncle Vanya's!
That said, the Russians are indeed doubling down on blowing more stuff up in order to win and it may be starting to work for them to a degree. Even if the Ukrainians still keep up the fight I think the best they might be able to hope now for is an agreement like the one Finland struck at the end of the Winter War in 1940, where they ceded about 10% of their territory that is still controlled by Russia.