We are witnessing Ukraine humiliate Russia, we are watching history unfold in front of us. What we are defining as a Ukrainian victory is expelling Russia out of Ukraine including Crimea. Apart from the pro-Putin Russian trolls on social media and QAnon conspiracy theorists, the world is cheering the Ukrainian defiance of this illegal invasion of a sovereign nation.

Russia currently occupies approximately 20% of Ukrainian territory, there is still a lot that can go wrong for Ukraine though. What we are seeing is Russia now holds less territory than it did in the first two weeks of the invasion of Ukraine. As a nation, a determined Ukraine held on against the initial onslaught, defeated the Russian advance towards Kyiv before making some spectacular gains against an overwhelming invasion force that was poorly led.

Although Russia is mobilising further troops, they appear to be mostly ineffective as they are poorly trained, lacking discipline, badly equipped and lacking the leadership to take advantage of their numerical advantage. Ukraine is hampered by not being able to use western weapons to attack legitimate Russian military targets within their own borders.

That being said, the Ukrainians appear to have modified some old Soviet era drones to attack their air force on Russian air bases deep in their own territory. They effectively created a slow moving cruise missile with limited range, maneuverability and explosive force to once again damage Russian assets and prestige. This has made a laughing stock of Putin and his much vaunted S-300 and S-400 air defense missile system. They cannot even shoot down home made missiles and defend their aircraft sitting on the tarmac – funny stuff.