Well its been quite a week. It has seen some of the most doom-laden reporting of the entire war since February 2022 (particularly in the New York Times) with prognostications that Russia is on the verge of a great success. However on the battlefield things are, as usual, hardly moving in the key front of the Donbas. Moreover, in the strategic air campaign, Ukraine seems actually to be showing great initiative and having success—with another large attack last night. This might be the week when there was the largest disconnect between what I see happening and how its being reported. This is not to say that Ukraine is succeeding and Russia failing—its just that the narrative of Russian success remains based on what they might accomplish, not what we have seen to this time.
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Its best to start with the Russian offensive at Kharkiv, which has been described in the area of greatest Russian success and Ukrainian failure. The New York Times described it in a feature story as a “stunning” invasion which punched threw Ukrainian lines overrunning large areas.

That campaign is now almost 10 days old and is entering a familiar pattern. After a modest amount of forward movement at start—advances have slowed significantly and losses are mounting up. ...
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Russian advances in the past week have been 2-3 kilometres in places—but once again are on a decreasing trend (they seized 80-90% of the land that they occupy in Kharkiv in the first three days of the attack).
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On Friday I sent out a post to subscribers on what were three nights of well-coordinated Ukrainian attacks on Crimea and Russia itself. They hit Russian airfields, naval bases and oil refineries—and seemed to befuddle Russian anti-air and sea defenses.