Hopefully the exodus from Reddit will help drown out the authoritarian-worship here.

Yes, my Russian-sympathizing friends. You can certainly classify the actions of Russia and China as imperialist & bad too, and it will not detract from the imperialist & bad stuff the US or "the West" has done. Most humans can walk and chew gum at the same time, you can too!

Edit: My first downvote here! Looks like there are indeed some people who can't walk and chew gum at the same time :P

It's shit like this that makes this one of the hardest wars to follow. Before that, it was Syria.

The Russian commanders, who were wrong to invade, have learned a lot since the initial invasion. It's the same reason that Assads army was much better after they lost a lot of their soldiers. When you have a lot of your army die, on average, the ones remaining are the ones who managed to stay alive who, again on average, are now much more experienced combat troops.

The Russians did exactly what Ukraine did during the Russian offensive. They pulled back behind their minefields, and then used artillery to drop more mines on the assaulting force that was in the process of clearing mines. This was the same tactic that the Ukrainians used to great success that caused a bunch of Russian tanks to be blown up in columns in Vulhedar.

Remember, good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. If the basis of your view of why you think a given side is losing is because you don't like them, then you aren't actually interested in the war. Just in cheerleading your team.

Honestly, I can't understand the strategic goal of how the Ukrainians are running this particular offensive. It truly seems to be to spend as much Ukrainian blood to secure western financial and logistical support. Not to actually gain territory they can hold. At least, that's my best guess with articles like this in the American media: Politico