Russian forces invaded Ukraine six months ago in order to crush the Ukrainian defense. That didn't happen.
Russia's rapid advance has slowed to a crawl, and Ukraine is making the invading forces pay in blood as the conflict becomes a grinding war of attrition.
On February 24, Russian President Putin ordered tens of thousands of Russian troops to the border with Ukranian. Long-range strikes on Ukrainian soil led to infantry and armor movements.
According to expert analysis and intelligence assessments before the war began, Ukraine would likely fall to Russian control in a matter of weeks or even days. Expectations could not have been more wrong.
The missed-in-action Russian air force and lack of combined arms operations were some of the early Russian mistakes. Problems within the Russian military, including sabotage, surrender, and disobedience, made it difficult for Russia's military to fight.
Russian forces were unable to capture the city after encircling it.
Despite being unable to seize the capital and topple the government, Russia shifted its focus to the east of the country, where the conflict has resembled World War I combat.
Russia has expanded its territory in the east and along the coast. Some areas of Russian-controlled territory are occupied by Russian forces or have been held by Russia before the war.
The Russian military has paid a heavy price for those relatively limited achievements.
The number of generals and senior officers who have died in battle in Russia has been high, with the Pentagon estimating that up to 80,000 Russians have been killed in the conflict.
A senior US defense official said earlier this month that the figures were "remarkable" because the Russians have not achieved their objectives.
According to William Burns, the CIA director, US intelligence estimates put the Russian war dead at 15,000. Since then, those numbers have increased.
The numbers are probably a little less than that, but they have suffered.
Valeriy Zaluzhny, the top general in Ukraine, said this week that the country has lost thousands of soldiers.
Russia's war machine seems to have stopped after half a year of fighting.
JeffreyEdmonds, a former CIA military analyst, told Insider that the front is largely static. There are no big gains on both sides.
A senior American defense official told reporters last Friday that the Pentagon is seeing a complete and total lack of progress by the Russians on the battlefield.
Both sides are exhausted, but the Russians can't keep going. "They don't have the manpower, they don't have the motivation to carry on at the operational level and sequence multiple operations to try to claim new territory."
Russia's army has been able to cause destruction.
Mariupol has been completely destroyed. Those in the shadow of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station that the Russian military has apparently been using as a shield have been held hostage by Russian aggression that has been widely condemned.
The war has taken a heavy toll on the people of the country. Millions of Ukrainians have had to leave their homes because of Russian war crimes and atrocities.
Russia could carry out "something particularly ugly, something particularly vicious" if the Ukrainian people celebrate their independence day on Wednesday. It's not clear what that could be.
Billions of dollars in economic aid and weapons packages from the US and other Western partners is what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is using to fight the Russians.
A massive $3 billion arms package is expected to be announced by the Biden administration, which has provided over $10 billion in support for the war effort in Ukraine.
Western anti-tank weapons like the Javelin and NLAW have wreaked havoc on Russian armor, and the long-range High Mobility Artillery Rocket System has been used to hamper Russian advances.
There are signs that a long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive is in the works, though perhaps not in the way that some might think.
Ukrainian officials, as well as some expert observers, have said that recent explosions at Russian positions in the rear that damaged combat assets, as well as other attacks, were the beginning of an effort to take back captured territory, specifically the western bank of the Dnieper River and part of Kh
George Barros, an analyst and expert on Russia and Ukraine at the Institute for the Study of War, said that the pattern of activity was part of a campaign to erode the Russian position.
The Russians would like it if the Ukrainians brought a large combat force to Kherson in order to weaken the Ukrainian defense in other parts of the country and give the Russians a decisive battle.
The Ukrainians aren't doing that. They are degrading the Russian positions that are reinforced in upper Kherson, suggesting a counteroffensive is very likely to look like a siege.
When Russian combat capability is weakened, it's possible for a smaller Ukrainian force to conduct a series of ground maneuvers to take back the territory.
Russia seems to be taking the possibility of a southern counteroffensive seriously and seems to be moving assets and emphasizing the defense of the south.
There is a difficulty to offensive operations that makes them harder than defense, and this does not mean defense is easy, given the army's need to stay mobile.
Because offense presents a number of substantial challenges, Ukraine may need time to further erode Russian warfighting capabilities at key positions and build up the necessary combat power.
Even in the face of these difficulties, the idea that Ukraine could achieve victory in this fight against a former military superpower seems more realistic than it did before the war began.
Mick Ryan, a strategist, author, and retired Australian Defense Force major general, wrote in an op-ed for The Sydney Morning Herald last week that "as months have passed, the initiative has slowly bled away from Russia."
He said that although Ukraine can win, it will need continued political, military, and economic support from its partners.
Ryan wrote that if Western political, economic and military support can be sustained, and the Ukrainian military can cause more battlefield defeats on the Russians, they may just pull off.
As the fight in Ukraine rages on with no end in sight, it remains to be seen whether such optimism is a mistake.
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