If the intention was to seize the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as a southern corridor to Crimea, it looks perilously close to succeeding.
Sure, but that raises the question of why they didn't initially try to do that and only fell back on it when the push on Kyiv failed. It also raises the question of what strategic value those regions actually have. They used to be quite industrialized but the civil war has completely destroyed the economy there. Whatever natural resources they have are going to be incredibly costly (and in some cases hazardous) to exploit. The remaining population is deeply divided, meaning there will continue to be ethnic and political tensions whatever the outcome is, and the region will entail substantial security expenses that probably outweighs any value it can give.
If we accept that that's the operational objective now, then sure, it's something Russia can quite possibly win. But from a strategic standpoint its still a complete disaster. It's massively strengthened NATO, politically isolated Russia and slam dunked the entire Russian economy (such as it was) straight into the bin for a small area of basically useless land full of disloyal people, and that's in a predominantly Russian speaking area with a significant pro-Russian population. In other occupied regions it's going to be even worse.
There's also the even worse possibility that the Russians send terms for a ceasefire to Ukraine and the Ukranian government just says no, and you're stuck in a situation where both sides are exhausted and yet continue to wage a low intensity war which drags out for years and continues to serve as an expensive embarassment.
Putin is capturing more territory, gas prices are up thanks to OPEC+(Russia plus OPEC), and the US is facing China, and Russia at the same time when it's facing an economic recession.
Again, let's put this into perspective.
US GDP per capita is 6 times higher than Russia. The total size of the US economy is 13 times the size of Russia. The idea that Russia is winning any kind of economic warfare against the US (even assuming it was just the US which it isn't), is an absolute joke. If Russian policy is economically harming the US, then it's harming Russia vastly more.
On the topic of gas prices, US gas prices are much lower than those in Europe because the fossil fuel industry in the US is heavily subsidized to keep those prices artificially low while in many European countries it's heavily taxed. I'd also add that a lot of the problems with energy right now are actually domestic, and not related to OPEC or Russia. For example, oil use fell during the Pandemic (less people driving or flying), so oil companies lowered production to avoid flooding the market, and now as consumption is rising again production is lagging behind as it takes a long time to bring refineries back up to capacity.
Frankly, higher gas prices are not bad. The reason people in Europe can deal with paying 8 or 9 dollars to the gallon is because high gas prices have incentivized economies which are less reliant on oil generally, which is part of the reason why our governments tax it so heavily.
Ukraine is losing 100 soldiers a day, and which amounts to around 36,500 troops a year, and this war could go on for multiple years.
Sure, but Ukraine is in a state of full mobilization.
This is something that might seem really counter-intuitive and baffling, and which Western media has really not acknowledged because it gets in the way of the "David versus Goliath" narrative, but Ukraine has a more total manpower than Russia because it can make use of reserves and conscripts. Russian manpower issues have been really noticable, to the point of being militarily crippling. One reason those tanks keep getting ambushed and blown up by guys with missile launchers, for example, is because there aren't enough infantry to screen them. The Russian advantage in equipment is massive, but even those equipment stockpiles aren't infinite and the lack of manpower is resulting in a lot of waste.
Of course, if Russia decides to actually escalate and declare war on Ukraine that could all change very fast, but it's clear at this point that the government is extremely committed to not doing that.
The US military/government thinks it's being clever by sending Ukraine lesser arms vs longer-range weapons like MLRSs, and SPGs, but once we hit a recession the political will to send more weapons could be lowered.
Both the US and many European countries have sent artillery to Ukraine. The US and other American countries have tended to supply towed artillery, while european countries have provided more vehicles (including SPGs and MLRSs). The obvious reason for this is that Europe can use its preexisting rail system to transport large military vehicles, while the US has to send supplies across the Atlantic ocean.
Meanwhile, Russia and China still have the hypersonics edge
..which doesn't matter.
Hypersonic missiles are ludicrously expensive and only relevant in some hypothetical conflict between countries with state of the art modern anti-missile systems and high value targets like naval strike groups. Ukraine doesn't have those systems or targets, so hypersonic missiles are just really expensive cruise missiles. The one example I could find of a suspected hypersonic missile being used in Ukraine was fired at a munitions dump, which could just as easily have been destroyed by a regular cruise missile or aircraft carrier.
I'd also add that Russia's hypersonic missile system is, to put it bluntly, a bit shit.
