Russia's attack on Ukraine continues to result in far more substantial losses than Russian planners appear to have predicted. In Mykolaiv, an entire Russian artillery position appears to have been wiped out; a Ukrainian counterattack yesterday is said to have reached the Russia-Ukrainian border. Russia's air losses are also continuing.
Anti-air and anti-tank weapons are now being delivered to Ukrainian defenders at a steady clip, with The New York Times reporting 14 planeloads of supplies arriving at one airfield alone on Friday. This may make Russian commanders even more reluctant to use air power over the country, further freeing Ukrainian forces to conduct larger-scale operations against Russian troops still facing supply shortages and muddy terrain that makes off-road travel difficult or impossible.
There has been little for Putin to celebrate in the last 24 hours. What the Russian autocrat believed would be a swift occupation now threatens to undermine Russia's own security as the military faces unsustainable losses, a steady depletion of already-scarce top-tier missiles and other equipment, and new dangers to Russian-backed separatist regions elsewhere if opposing militaries gauge Russia to be too stretched thin to back their favored revolutionaries.