I was interested in making a comparison. Iraq in 2000 had 25 million people to 2022 Ukraines 44 million. Ukraine is also land-wise about 1/3 bigger than Iraq.

I have no idea what Russia's goals or strategies were or are in this war, and nobody else posting on medium does either. I read/hear the constant refrain "Russia wanted to take Kyiv." I think, you can't possibly know that.

I can imagine, looking at the maps and reading reports, that Russia is facing much stronger defense than they had planned for, but I don't KNOW that.

I can look at the comparison of numbers between (for example) Mariupol and Falluja and see that Russia is actually doing better than the US militarily in that one instance. Overall I can't say.

Wikipedia (not a Russian source) says the Iraq war was 8 years long. After 2 months I think it is early to be claiming that Russia is stalled and losing. Time will tell.