Great observations! Agree with your analysis.

Putin is still under the delusion that he can scare Ukraine into surrender. Taking territory makes for good news. The news reports all the negatives. I too get caught up in it.

But when I stand back I notice that every week another extremely difficult to replace piece of Russian equipment destroyed. It's an attrition war that doesn't make for good PR. The public is numb to bombers going down, etc.

Russia can buy expendable munitions from Chinese black market with its oil money but eventually it won't have an air force to deliver it. Now Putin is getting some "central control" guy to structure the economy for victory. Welcome back U.S.S.R. They haven't learned.