It's stalemate at the moment. It's a waiting game for Western support of Ukraine to drop or for something domestically in Russia to fail.

Seems like a stalemate at the moment but it could really go either way from what I can tell. It depends upon if the west will lose interest and cut back on support or if public opinion in Russia wanes towards wanting an end to the war. At the moment it seems neither side is willing to accept the current status quo.

Given that it is essentially a proxy war between the US and Russia, its quite possible the war could end without either side actually "winning".

Obviously the US will continue to support the war for as long as possible, and if that means turning ukraine to ash and destroying the economies of western europe, well that is a price they are willing to pay.

There are still shortages in Russia and if the gas and electricty shortages continue through winter that could be devastating in Russia. It wouldn't take that much to tip the country into chaos, what the response of the Russian govt to Ukraine would be - possibly using their really large missiles that can wipe out a whole village - is completely unknown.

We don''t really understand the mentality of the Ukraine govt. The fact that many western weapons seem to go missing before they reach the front and the coincidence of the Azerbaijan getting a pile of muntions just after deliveries to Ukraine may indicate that the aims of the Ukraine govt may not totally align with those of western europe.

Seems Russia is slowly grinding out Ukraine and if Russia decides to give up at any point or Ukraine negotiates then russia will probably have gained territory.

I'm not qualified to speak on this. It is however my opinion that in war, nobody wins, but military suppliers make bank.

To answer "who's winning" can vary based on what "winning" is looks like, or what the goals were. As others have pointed out those goals have changed over time.

For a play by play recap I listen to Denys Davydov... He seems upfront about both Ukranian and Russian victories in his analysis based on various video, image and map reports, even if he supports the Ukraine side.

The war is largely in a stalemate at the moment. Odds are, if this continues for years longer, Russia will eventually win just by virtue of having more people to send to die for the country, but if it comes to that, Russia will suffer far moreso than they already are, both due to increased strikes within Russia and just loosing the majority of their working population.

War is never pretty, never fun not clean. Everyone involved ultimately loses and brings tragedy to the unfortunate lifes and families on both sides.

However, if we are speaking purely about "winning" as if it was a game, then the Ukraine certainly is beating Russia and winning. However a victory in a war might not mean that the people of the country won't be devastated afterwards.

I tend to think as well that the situation in Ukraine is currently a stalemate. The fact is that, while Russia is losing weapons, Ukraine is gaining them. There's also a different quality of life for Western weapons compared to the Russian ones because, well, that's something that the West actually cared for back in the Cold War days. USSR and its satellites only cared about meeting the 5-year quota, or whatever they cared for in order to show the West they were more industrialized and whatnot. Western weapons are also more accurate and tends to integrate more hi-tech inside, so that you can use them for one-strike-one-kill instead of carpet bombing large swaths of land until nothing moves there. This is why, e.g. you have Grad systems with around 42 projectiles or so, all usually being fired in chain, while on HIMARS you only have a maximum of 6 projectiles, which are usually fired individually.

All this now proves vital for Ukraine, as it has to fight a country with a larger manpower, a larger (pre-war at least) stock of vehicles and a larger stock of ammunition. Ukraine, however, did not manage to become a powerful force on the counter-offensive. It does a great job at hardening Russian attacks, causing incredible amounts of damage for every inch of land lost, but the required weaponry for a successful breakthrough has been in short supply. Besides that, what Ukraine initially planned to do was to do a combined arms attack. And you cannot do this without a good amount of air support - which Ukraine was and is currently lacking.

IMO, it remains to be seen what will happen when Ukraine will finally start to operate F-16 jets (among other equipment it started to build in-house like drones), but as of now, on the equipment and fighting side, Ukraine is currently winning. On the loss side, while Russia loses more people and equipment than Ukraine, I'm afraid the numbers are proportionally the same for both sides. This is why I see it as heading to a stalemate in the foreseeable future. But Russia can no longer win what it initially planned, it is constantly changing the objectives in order to show the world that it achieved something, and Ukraine simply cannot lose. Russia's only advantage right now is being on the offensive itself.