This graphic and title were published by The New York Times in two articles separated by eight days.
Ukraine's Counteroffensive Has Made Progress. But It Has Much Farther to Go (2023-09-20)
How the Front Line Has Barely Moved in Ukraine this Year (2023-09-28)
spoiler
This javascript bs sure makes for shitty snapshots, but I refuse to link directly to the NYT.
Based on the victory pics I've seen, they're mostly liberating rubble. Which is, like, sad. A tremendous waste of resources fighting a pointless war on a dying planet
The horror of war that liberals refuse to talk about. Ukrainians spent the last two years trading high explosives on every last standing piece of public infrastructure. It doesn't matter who wins this war in the end. The people of Ukraine will have lost unfathomable amounts of working capital, nevermind the entire generation of conscripts that were shoved into free fire zones or sent out to stomp on land mines.
This is the Iran-Iraq War of nightmarish bloody pointless futility.
Finally a better comparison of what's happening...
When you put it that way, it's like if a restaurant closes at 7 and the war is being fought at 6:45. Like it's not going to make a difference and my shift is almost over. Why do I have to work so hard right now?
How well does the war tip?