The logic I'm using is relative. What does "Russia is strong" mean?

Ukraine was armed and trained for 8 years by NATO. One battalion a month was trained in-country by US forces. We supplied them with over $3 billion in weapons (that is the official number, who knows what it really was) between 2014 and 2022.

Ukraine, with US help, built huge layered defenses in the Donbass, basically a 21st century Maginot line, that Russia cannot go around like zee Germans did to France.

NATO is supplying ever more lethal weapons and providing targeting, supply, repair and training. e.g. the Reaper drone that Russia just downed was the US scoping out Crimea for Ukraine.

The US and UK have boots on the ground in Ukraine supporting Ukraine in daily operations. Prior to the war we referred to Ukraine as NATO except in name.

Russia's "shock and awe" tactic would have worked, we now know, except that NATO told Ukraine we wouldn't support a peace deal in March/April of 2022.

Russia recalibrated for a long war, and since then has slowly ground down a massive, massively armed and massively entrenched military fighting on their home territory.

Ukraine's arms have been replace about 50% over the last year, with ever increasing arms from the west.

Ukraine's military is not Iraq's. Expecting the Russians to roll over Ukraine after all that prep and all the help they received and are receiving would be unrealistic to my mind.

Bakhmut is hugely important for logistics reasons. Ukraine has been defending it fiercely. Yet Russia is still winning.

Russia appears to my analysis to not give a shit if we think they are strong, or are not winning fast enough. Winning more slowly allows support for Ukraine to wane in the west, Ukraine to be demilitarized (a stated goal of Russia's) and allows Russia to use its huge advantage in artillery to save its men.