Two and a half years since the war began, we’ve finally come to the point where most of the Mockingbird Media is ready to call it quits, and openly admit the obvious: Russian Federation troops are winning the war.

Even in their cheerleading for Kiev, they have to admit that ‘if Ukraine and its Western backers are to win, they must first have the courage to admit that they are losing.’

The Economist reported:

“A measure of Ukraine’s declining fortunes is Russia’s advance in the east, particularly around the city of Pokrovsk.

[…] Ukraine is also struggling off the battlefield. Russia has destroyed so much of the power grid that Ukrainians will face the freezing winter with daily blackouts of up to 16 hours. People are tired of war. The army is struggling to mobilize and train enough troops to hold the line, let alone retake territory. There is a growing gap between the total victory many Ukrainians say they want, and their willingness or ability to fight for it.”

Another unmistakable realization is that abroad, ‘fatigue is setting in’, be it in Germany and France or in the United States.

“If Mr Zelensky continues to defy reality by insisting that Ukraine’s army can take back all the land Russia has stolen since 2014, he will drive away Ukraine’s backers and further divide Ukrainian society. Whether or not Mr Trump wins in November, the only hope of keeping American and European support and uniting Ukrainians is for a new approach that starts with leaders stating honestly what victory means.”

It’s become obvious that he does not have the men or arms to turn the war around.

In a different report, the same The Economist has to state that “With his army gradually losing ground, his people’s enthusiasm for the war flagging and Western support in doubt, Mr. Zelensky is in a bind.”

The article reminds Western readers that ‘since Ukraine recaptured the city of Kherson in late 2022, it has made almost no progress repelling Russia’s invasion’.

The summer offensive in 2023 was a failure, and now Moscow is closing in on several more Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk, including Pokrovsk and Ugledar.

Another harsh reality they start to face is the attacker’s huge advantage in firepower, especially now with glide bombs, which are guided munitions of up to 3 tons that can flatten defensive positions and slaughter troops.

“Russia [has launched] nine waves of attacks from March to August against Ukraine’s power plants and electricity grid. It has hit targets in almost every province under Ukrainian control, according to a recent UN report. This onslaught took out some 80% of Ukraine’s coal- and gas-fired generation.”

At this point, 77% of Ukrainians say a friend or acquaintance has died in the war, while 22% have lost a relative.

That is not all, because Some 6.5m people – almost a fifth of the population – have fled the country.

And who are the people that Kyiv expects to turn this around? Old – for war – conscripted people with an average age of 45 years old, whose training standards have reportedly been so poor that not all of them know how to hold a weapon.

Military Watch Magazine reported::

“The Ukrainian Army is suffering from a continued decline in the capabilities of its frontline units, as losses among trained and experienced units have fuelled a fast growing reliance on conscript units with very limited operational capabilities.”

Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi says that recruits ‘have consistently proven to lack necessary training for frontline operations’.

Senior conscription officer: “Out of 100 people who joined the units last fall, 10-20 remain, the rest are dead, wounded or disabled.”

Financial Times reported:

“Ukraine’s troops and their commanders are growing concerned over manpower problems, particularly the quality of new recruits and the speed at which they are injured or killed in combat.

[…] The new conscripts lack basic combat skills and motivation and often abandon their positions when they come under fire.

[…] The commanders estimated that 50 to 70 percent of new infantry troops were killed or wounded within days of starting their first rotation.

‘When the new guys get to the position, a lot of them run away at the first shell explosion’.”

Since the a new conscription law in May, Ukraine has managed to to draft about 30,000 soldiers a month – mostly by force.

“But commanders on the ground and military analysts have warned that the newly drafted troops are not highly motivated, are psychologically and physically unprepared — and are being killed at an alarming rate as a result.”

The remaining seasoned soldiers die too quickly and are being replaced by older men without experience and in worse physical shape.

“’Some of them don’t even know how to hold their rifles. They peel more potatoes than they shoot bullets’, he said, adding that he had bought paintball equipment to replace rifles and live rounds so that new recruits could get more practice without wasting precious ammunition.”

Read more:

Is Zelensky Making Impossible Demands to Scapegoat His Western Allies as ‘Traitors’ and Be Able To Negotiate With Russia Without Losing Face?