I follow the war extremely closely and am in contact with troops on the ground, and have financed some small things for certain units I admire. Here’s the honest breakdown:
Ukraine could lose within a year
Russia can’t sustain this more than 2-3 years
Ukraine has a huge military at the moment, but not as big as russia’s. Russia has ammassed a new 100,000 man battle group near Belogrod, partially composed of African and Chinese prisoners they have gotten (yes, check russian telegram- many chinese soldiers in ukraine fresh from chinese labor camps, donated to russia by the CCP). It’s like a game of Risk- Russia has more men on the border, and anywhere Ukraine moves men, they make another area weaker. They have reserve units training and units resting obviously, but they keep having to re-deploy exhausted brigades lately. If Ukrainian F-16s, HIMARS, and other new western weapons can stem the recent russian gains, there is hope. Ukrainian pilots have been training on F-16s for about a year now and the first modernized jets are slated to arrive in safe west ukrainian air bases in June. However if they don’t give them enough support, Kyiv could fall within a year or two or less.
On the russian side, they absolutely cannot sustain this war for much longer. It’s not even an opinion at this point. Ukrainian drones have reduced Russian domestic oil production by 17% so far (they hit another refinery yesterday) and they have hit refineries as far as 1,200km deep into russia. They have also been sending suicide sabatoge teams to shoot down russian jets inside russia, like that massive bomber 2 weeks ago. Russia’s armored vehicle and tank losses massively outpace their domestic production capabilities- eventually they will run out of tanks and APC’s, and soon. Even with their economy on its “war footing” they lose 10x more tanks than they make per day, sometimes. Same with jets, ships, and helicopters- they have lost huge numbers. 27 major surface warships is the current tally, about a third of the entire anti-NATO black sea fleet, which has been forced to leave crimea entirely since the waters are swarming with ukrainian drones. The one thing Russia has is men.
Regardless, the ukrainians have exposed Russia, and the Trump party, as the monsters they are.