Arms dealers.

arms manufacturers

The goal posts for both sides are very, very different.

The invading Russian forces have basically failed their first goal; to fully take over Ukraine. They can now claim a minor victory by stealing more territory from Ukraine than just Crimea.

Ukraine's goal was to stop Russia from wiping them off of the map. Things appear to have changed. Their new goal is to retake all land that Russia has stolen (including Crimea).

The war has largely been at a standstill for a while, and the only times that Ukraine has been able to make progress is when the word has given its attention and resources. Since "Israel vs Hamas" is the guerre-du-jour, Ukraine seems to be getting less of both.

So I may sound like a doomer, but it's not looking good for the good guys. They have a much harder victory condition, and the resources that they have relied so far may be drying up.

There has been some good answers, but I'm not entirely satisfied with the details, so I will add my own response.

Culturally Russia sees itself as outside the rest of the world. At the very minimum, an equal to historical empires of Europe or Asia, but part of neither. It sees the USA as an ethnic mongrel with no culture or history, and hates the US power it projects globally.

Russia sees the former Soviet Union countries as property of the Rus people, and NATO involvement as outsider influence in affairs that do not concern them.

Globally, the world values stability more than they value justice or peace. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, it came after several other invasions of other former Soviet countries. There was little global response on any occasion.

Putin did expect the invasion to be fast and achieve their goals quickly. It was a mistake on his behalf.

This invasion was taken differently than any previous invasion because it upset global stability. Gas, oil and grain were traded openly with Russia and Ukraine and a war upset the market right when the world was trying to stabilise markets rocked by inflation, pandemic recovery and suppy chain problems.

The result was many countries around the world pledging military support. This was always older generation materiel which essentially costs those countries to maintain. It was the global equivalent of giving a homeless man the doggy bag you didn't want anyway.

Why did they do this? They wanted Russia to pull back, return to its 2014 lines and go back to stability so that global markets could resume. So they gave Ukraine just enough to defend itself, but not enough to win.

Why did they do this? Because the world wants stability more than peace. Of the pledges of materiel, almost none has actually come to fruition. About 1/4 of the armor promised has arrived that was promised. Ukraine continues to beg for alms (or in this case arms), and they do amazing things with the little they are given.

Western powers could arm Ukraine and it would win. They have had no problem spending trillions of dollars over decades to protect their influence. It does not in this case as the World is only just coming to terms that Russia will not stop just for stability.

Putin will cease to be leader if he pulls back. The Russian leader would be seen as weak, and the Russian culture loves a Tsar. Putin believes in luck and will continue the sunk cost in the hope that some outside factor or random event will go in his favor.

The West is already getting bored and tired of a war they aren't even fighting. There is a possibility that pro-Russian Republicans could regain office or power in the US. All Putin has to do is hold and eventually the West will even start telling Ukraine to capitulate to them.

Putin does not care how many troops he loses. Russia doesn't really care how many people it loses unless those people are from the cities. Russian culture dehumanises the poor and mixed ethnicities.

This current grinding stalemate is a direct result of world policy. The world supplies Ukraine with just enough so they don't lose, but not enough that they can win. In the meantime, the arms dealers are circling like sharks. India and China are cashing in on filling global supply gaps and taking advantage of Russias need for materiel frozen by sanctions. The hope would be that world leaders realise before it's too late that the only way Ukraine can win, is that if Russia loses.

The US Military Industrial Complex of course.

Right now I am hearing ever louder calls of Russia winning

Winning was taking over the county at first. Then it was kherson, and donbass, crimea, and a few others. Now it's just like 3 areas. If you're hearing anything about winning it's because the goal posts are moving.

Youtuber Perun had some good high level takes on the war. It all boils down to Western support will win. As long as support keeps coming from the rest of the world, eventually Russia will run out of material. WW2 was won (not wholly, but in large part) due to the larger economy being on the allies side.

It's mostly a stalemate for now. The dam destruction helped Russia funnel Ukraine counterattack on its biggest fortifications, so not much progress for Ukraine in the south. Russia resumed its offensive in the Dombass and Aavdiivka is starting to look like the new Bhakmut.

It's an attrition war and Russia is losing like 2 or 3 times as much as Ukraine in men or material. But Russia has much more men than Ukraine. Russian morale is very low, but Ukraine support from the west is under big pressure, both from Russian propaganda and conservative/fascist political parties. This last one is the real war happening now.

Next year will be important because of the elections in the US. What happen on the battlefield is still to be seen.

It's a stalemate, largely. While Russia was massively on the backfoot earlier in the year, they mined massive swaths of eastern Ukraine before partially retreating.

Which makes it unlikely for Russia to actually have any future forward progress, but it also stymies Ukraine from doing the same except extremely slowly. There's still been several victories for Ukraine over the past few months, but they haven't changed the fighting area much.

It's largely a war of attrition to wear down Russia now, who has been having more and more internal issues as time goes on.

Define "winning".

Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.

Considering this is a war of attrition, "winning" such as it is doesn't look like conscripting every man, woman and child that can hold a gun to get blown up in trenches. They should have just negotiated a year ago.

Death is the winner of any war

As others have said, it's a war of attrition. There's no end in sight. As it stands, we can only speculate on who is winning. Russia have so far failed to make any significant gains, and Ukraine have so far failed to push the Russians out.

It's a bit like the stalemates of trench warfare in WW1. Something will have to give eventually.

the us military industrial complex's investors seems to be winning real good

The capitalist class. War profiteers gonna war profiteer. The billions of dollars in funding, arming, and training nazis has also broken the overton window. It's gotten so bad that criticism received for giving a standing ovation to an ss veteran can be dismissed as Russian propaganda.

the Capitalism

You probably shouldn't be getting your news from randos on the internet. Literally anyone can post here.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iHrZRJR4igQ

I'd say the only ones winning are those selling stuff to Ukraine and Russia. I also remember a panel some months ago, about how the other EU countries will help rebuild Ukraine once the war is over. To me, it looked like they were already slicing the not even dead body in order to profit off it.

Ukraine as a whole is at a bigger loss, given all the infrastructure damage and population losses, this one counting both deaths and people fleeing the country.

Well Ukraine itself is definitely losing. They will probably lose territory to Poland as well if this keeps up and they have sold their country out to capitalists, mostly Americans. Loans, land, industries, etc all to pay for "their" war effort. The common Ukrainian is who suffers the most under this. They will be more exploited (paid less for the value of their labor), see more social programs dismantled, and go into a serious recession/depression that may not lift for decades.

Russia is doing okay. The US is pulling Europe more into its orbit (making them pay more for less from the US while losing a lot of their industry), which is a loss for Russia, but that was the remand endgame of the US anyways. What was surprising, at least to some, was the extent to which Russia could survive and even thrive when subjected to the most significant financial weapons the West has. Overall their economy is certainly in a better place now and a chunk of Ukraine will be theirs and the other chunk will be weak. This is a victory for the ruling class of Russia and its overall geopolitical self-interest.

The US ruling class is making out like bandits as usual, funding its weapons industry, basically a cash injection for the owner class and the only thing the US ever reliably does (threaten its chosen enemies with destruction).

The media won't give you "an answer". Is a war like a board game where everyone can see the pieces and count the score according to the rules? What is Russia objective? Idk. Are they meeting it? Sure, to some degree. At what cost? We'll we only have a small sense of the costs.

Is Ukraine "winning"? Well they have lost so much but not everything. Are they meeting their objectives? We'll their state didn't fall. That's good.

And you just want some OP ED at NYT to just sum it up like it's a football game?

Usa has been diverting its weapons supplies to its holocaust in palestine. Most of ukrainian weapons production is in the east, which is no longer under their control. I'd assume they will run out of weapons sooner or later.

Well, you're going to get different responses, many of which are good points, and depending on the person you asked.

But imo, it is hard to tell. And the best response we can say is: we don't know. Ukraine retook many territories but so has Russia. Both sides suffered many casualties. The problem with analysing the war is the white noise coming from emotional responses on the events of the war happening at the time.

When Ukraine was invaded, everyone thought they will capitulate. They didn't. Kyiv then retook Kharkiv Oblast, everyone thought Russia will surrender. The Ukrainian counteroffensive was hyped, but disappointed many. Prigozhin tried to coup Putin and thought it is the end of Putin, but they're still here.

So, the best response to your question is, we don't know. And that's the most certain answer you could get and that is not a bad thing. For those who tend to forget, we still have the fog of war shrouding our vision. We don't know what will happen in many months to come. Hindsight only tends to be 20/20 after an event.

However, I think the two major considerations for this year is 1. Ukraine had been effective in interdicting Russian logistical lines and sent the Russian Black Sea fleet reeling away from Crimea. Those are Ukrainian strategic gains that are often forgotten and not seen by the mainstream as important, who see ground combat as more important. 2. Though on the other side, the Russian support for Putin is still strong and either they support the war or ambivalent. In this case, Putin won the hearts and minds of Russians to either support or turn a blind eye to the conflict. Propaganda war is as important as military one to convince enough of the public to support it.

Russia. It's a war of attrition and Russia has the manpower and industrial capacity

the west didn't misread the situatiom because the west doesn't care about Ukraine they just wanted to kill people

The capitalist class in the USA is winning the war. Russia is surviving, and Ukraine is losing. The goal of the war is to launder as much tax payer money from working class USA and Europeans to the political elite and their friends as possible. They do this by purchasing weapons from their own capitalists using tax money. The capitalists then share the money with the bureaucracy that facilitates the money laundering. The secondary goal is to subjugate Russia, and failing that, hurt them as much as possible so that they can be subjugated in the future. Subjugating Russia is necessary because Russia's military power is regularly used against the interests of the capitalist class in the USA.

The arm industry and drone makers

I’ve been following along daily, have an army background so take from that what you will.

I think Russia is winning the war, strategically. They are losing a small amount of ground, but there’s no breakthrough and every day that goes by in the current state is a day closer to a fragile peace deal that secures Russia’s winnings. I think anything beyond Krim is just buffer zone. This is fundamentally about securing access to ocean - Russia is extremely constricted in getting its navy to sea.

With a frozen war Ukraine won’t be admitted to NATO - in that way, I think Russia is content to have a frozen conflict, because it creates a weak buffer state between Russia and NATO.

So in terms of securing its desired outcomes, Russia is winning.

It's considered a positional stalemate, and that is politically advantageous for Russia. Both parties have been able to set up considerable defensive positions, making progress extremely costly. Both parties are still fighting for progress nonetheless, where Russia has the most trouble achieving it and Ukrainian forces are making small gains (field by field) on a consistent basis. But knowing that the frontlinie is many miles deep and there is intense trench warfare to make a few yards progress... There will be no swift or decisive victory on either side.

Putin has most of his followers convinced that he is fighting nato backed nazis. So even when Russian war tactics are brutally inefficient and the losses in personell and equipment are enormous, there is little internal political backlash. Internationally the conflict is seen as a regional dispute. Since Ukraine isn't a part of a large international alliance. Western sanctions on Russia aren't as impact full as they could have been.

It's looking likely that the war in Ukraine is going to last a very long time. With guerilla attacks on Russian territory becoming more likely and higher in frequency. Russia doesn't have the equipment left for large scale invasions, doesn't have the money to create meaningful reserves. And the kremlin needs defensive power in other places along its border.

European and western sentiment is that Putin will not stop until the old ussr borders are back under his control. And being securely and unquestionably positioned as world superpower.

Russia should have had the conventional phase all finished in a couple months, so by that measure Ukraine. Russia has also lost territory the whole way past the battle of Kiev, so by that measure also Ukraine. Neither look set to win any time soon, so by that measure (which is probably the important one) it's a stalemate. The big variables now are Western support and Russian political stability as the conflict drags on. Neither side is close to running out of men.

The claims that Russia was winning the whole time come from basically the geopolitical version of flat earthers, who believe exactly the opposite of what everyone else does. Or actual Russian agents, but as far as I can tell that's rare.

Unlike everyone here, I have no idea.