Larry, I'm not sure where you get your news, but looking at Ukrainian war maps and listening to the US military:

- Russia is holding about 20% of Urkaine

- Ukraine's spring->summer offensive is not succeeding

- Ukraine is running out of guns, ammo, and well-trained soldiers. Russia is not running out of any of those.

This war is - very sadly - long from over I think, but it has had one slow trend since the great Kharkiv offensive of Ukraine last fall: Slow, grinding advance by Russia, with massive, layered fortifications laid in by Russia after taking an area.

Unless there is some huge change in western policy, I expect Russia will continue to slowly grind away until they have absorbed all the Russian leaning areas of the current Ukraine. I expect they will leave the western leaning Oblasts as part of a much smaller, very likely land-locked and dysfunctional rump state.

Obama was right on this subject in 2016 when he recognized that Russia will always have escalatory dominance in Ukraine.

The massive difference to Afghanistan is that the parts of Ukraine that Russia has either already annexed or (I expect) will annex in the future have a Russian-speaking and leaning public.