Ukraine

Ukraine’s professional military core eroded, replaced by mobilized teachers, drivers, farmers, and IT workers.

That's very demeaning of the Ukrtainian army and leadership. But now you apparently agree the criticism in the article is exaggerated?

I mean, it’s not. Stop just looking at the ‘sexy’ units like 3rd Assault or the Davinci Wolves and pay attention to the regular guys in the trenches or manning the somewhat calm areas of the line - like the TDF. Middle aged men who were welders, bus drivers, famers, store clerks, etc wearing 2014 era digicam uniforms often still holding AK-74s, in poorly built fighting positions, with trash everywhere in the open - why? Poor supply and poor leadership. If you’re not fighting you should be sleeping or digging/improving your FP. Well trained and disciplined troops with NCOs on the line would not permit that.

So what are we actually disagreeing on? The article is trash, and you show nothing to contradict that, seems like you just had a knee jerk reaction.

The article (though heavily needing citation throughout) mostly fits with the informal conversation you can hear from the smaller Telegram channels run by actual soldiers, instead of PR arms of the state/brigades; we are tired of ineffective command treating our lives callously to cover their own failures/ineptitude. And that there is no exit from frontline except via death, crippling injury, or reassignment for the lucky.

This line was the kicker for me from the article, and is exactly the kind of blind hope that I initially started this conversation criticizing:

This fed a dangerous optimism about the upcoming counteroffensive – some even predicted it would end the war and push Russian forces out of Crimea. 

Reality proved very different. When these ambitious goals proved impossible, the narrative had to change. Leaders started talking about capturing Tokmak instead – a much more modest objective.

This moment marked a turning point in Western support.

Emphasis mine. The meming of invincible Ukraine against fleeing Russians was foolish, overbuilt expectations, and when the 2023 counteroffensive fell on the Surovikin line, Western leaders had a much harder time selling support of the war domestically as an immediately winnable fight, instead of the protracted attritional conflict of industrial, financial, and manpower capacity that it is.