The state of the war is about a hell of a lot more than the location of the front lines. How much progress has Afghanistan made in pushing back the American invasion before the Taliban effectively won? Ditto that for the previous Russian invasion.

The fact that Russia’s entire Black Sea fleet is afraid to leave port is pretty important, especially when it allows Ukraine to continue shipping grain. The ability of Ukraine to strike accurately deep into Russian territory, and the inability of Russia to defend it’s critical infrastructure is also relevant. Corruption drains far more of Russia’s resources than it does Ukraine’s, and authoritarian leadership means frontline units are unable to respond quickly to changing conditions. That’s a small part of why Russian moral is so low that troops must be deployed to shoot frontline troops as they try to escape. That’s not happening on the Ukrainian side.

It seems to me that Ukraine is still very much in this fight. It’s not like Russian advances have been all that effective.