Quote (Black XistenZ @ May 17 2022 02:55pm)
Russia had to change strategy multiple times, they are using anti-ship missiles to attack land targets which strongly hints at them running out of guided missiles, they have been unsuccessfully trying to build up momentum on the Donbass front for a whole month now, modern weapons keep streaming into Ukraine every day while Russia will have a much harder time replacing any lost material, Sweden and Finland will join NATO, which is stronger and more united than before, the shift of the European economies away from Russian oil and gas has been massively accelerated by the war, Russia's reputation in both the diplomatic and the military sphere are in shambles, their central bank has to burn through its foreign currency stockpile, their economy will take a huge hit from all the sanctions once they can't paper over it anymore.
What does Russia have on the plus side? They made some smallish gains in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, they now control the ruin formerly known as Mariupol and they captured a land connection from the Donbass to Crimea - although it remains to be seen whether they can hold the region around Kherson.
The Donbas has 50-60k Ukrainian troops and has been fortified and entrenched for 5 years, for the Russians to try and blitzkrieg their way through that would be idiotic and be very costly, so a change in strategy was absolutely the right thing. Their initial strategy was actually the wrong move, they underestimated Ukrainian fighting resolve which resulted in a lot of dead Russians initially. That's not the case now as instead of pushing very fast to take territory, they are just methodically leading with never ending artillery strikes in the east. Also, dozens of countries pooling all of their military hardware and sending it to Ukraine also makes it much harder for them to simply roll through.
Their central bank is actually not really burning through foreign currency as bad as people would think. They have a trade surplus, one that continues to grow (expected to be at record levels this year) as many European companies stopped selling goods to Russia, while Europe still spends billions on Russian gas and oil, which means the ruble has increasing demand and that's why the Euros are forced to pay a higher FX rate now (which means more foreign reserves for less rubles going to Russia's central bank).
One obvious plus is gaining territory the size of Greece, if they keep most of it, that's absolutely massive considering the south east is resource rich. Time will tell, I'm following this war on a daily basis and it's hard for me to come to the conclusion the side that is firing hundreds of strikes on a daily basis and is on the offensive is losing.