I said Russia has been hitting targets further and further West via ballistic missile. You asked me how much territory they gained. I said that these two things (long range strikes and territorial capture) are unrelated.

Okay;

but they been hitting Kyiv for years, it's just that their drones/missiles are now faster, and like the Shaheds, will take Ukrainians awhile before they again come up with better ways to counter them.

I know little of what's going on in Ukraine, be it rural or urban, but I figure that the population has been taking measures to better cope with Putin attacking civilian targets and civilians. I'm sure the per capita ownership of batteries (both lithium, lead-acid, and others), PVCs, wood stoves, maybe a few portable steam engines and small wind turbines—might as well make use of the winter gales—water storage, increased stores of necessities, potassium iodide (because Russia might use tactical nukes and we don't want a repeat of Hiroshima or Nagasaki were there were presumably fewer sandbags, no protection for thyroids, white shadows, etc), have increased.

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Russia has clearly been focused on the border between Russia and Ukraine - multi-layered defense, political ambiguity through referenda, international humanitarian justification, etc. Russian territorial gains and losses are almost entirely confined to the Donbas region.

I agree that their occupation of Crimea and Donbas have been fortified, and probably like Ulster/Northern Ireland, will remain separated for years if not decades (no reason for diplomatic concessions, though).

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But also, Ukraine has industrial capabilities in the West that they are using to fight the war. Russia doesn’t need to gain territory to hit those targets with ballistics. It’s a different conversation.

Russia tried to invade much, if not most (maybe all) of Ukraine in 2022. They failed, but in for a penny and all of that.

It seems that Putin has hunkered down for the long term. Maintain control of Crimea and Donbas, maybe expand a little, and try to fight a war of attrition with air strikes minus traditional air superiority. Where the US failed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Vietnam, with actual airplanes as well as with missiles, rockets, and shells, so will Russia fail even more with at least most of Ukraine.

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Where they might be related is where those capabilities that Russia is targeting are capabilities that Ukraine is using on the front lines in the Donbas. But the effectiveness of launching a missile barrage at Kiev is not measured in territory gains or losses in the Donbas.

Again, it looks like a war of attrition: attempt to weaken the tax/industrial base of Ukraine to defend itself, be it in Donbas or Kyiv, mixed with psychology, i.e. try to weary Ukrainians—somewhat like Israel against Gaza, though Israel's attacks are far more intense and brutal, and their case, probably (but not certainly) will be more successful.