They wanted to stay in Afghanistan even after 20 years but 2 years of Ukraine is too much.

People just keep parroting this nonsense about money being allocated to Ukraine being the problem when the actual problem is lack of industrial capacity in the west to produce weapons and ammunition at the rate they're being consumed. The west has now largely run through the existing stockpiles, and lacks the capacity to produce more in time. Mainstream western media now openly admits this https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/15/rate-of-russian-military-production-worries-european-war-planners

Allocating more funds for Ukraine isn't magically going to make stuff like artillery shells appear out of thin air.

This is how proxy wars go. The Republicans aren't bought out by Russia. The USA uses proxies for specific strategic goals. When the goal is achieved or becomes untenable, they cut off the proxy. That's just how it goes.

To avoid showing voters the realpolitik they need some plausible reasons for cutting off the proxy. Usually it's a combination of fiscal responsibility noise and isolationist noise. This is no different.

The USA was provoking Russia. Russia got provoked. The USA activated some sleeper cells, those cells got neutralized. The USA wanted to see Russian capabilities, they got what they could, including intel on hypersonic missile performance, but I don't know if they got what they wanted.

And then multiple fronts got opened up against the West (Niger, Palestine, etc) and threat escalations emerged in unexpected locations (Iranian missiles im Venezuela). And it's become clear the West can't produce the war machine it needs for the conflicts that are coming. So, it's time to cut off the proxy. Russia doesn't have the means to occupy Ukraine. The USA is not worried about Russian expansion, so there's no more reason to be there, except of course the rhetorical reasons that were used to mask the proxy nature of the conflict in the first place (russophobia, anti-communism, moral posturing, etc). So, to control the domestic mood, the Republicans get to play their part as dirt bags, make a bunch of rhetorical noise about why we can't fund them anymore, and psyops adds some Russiagate flavor through networks of influence to mask the reality: the proxy has outlived its usefulness and the USA is cutting them off.

I also hope that the alphabet agencies are wasting their time on bullshit qanon style conspiracy theories. Means they're spending less time harassing minorities.

Americans who think the alphabet agencies are going to save us: ACAB includes the alphabet agencies.

But you see, a bazillion Russians were killed during meat wave assaults with nothing but shovels to take this city that only has symbolic significance.

Not from the US or Europe, but I kept hearing news about Ukraine countering Russia? What just happened?

US Republicans are working towards autocratic facism in the US, and fundamental yet unspoken within that is their palpable relationship with other autocratic and autocratic hopefuls like Un and Putin.

US Republicans (and their voters) would rather live under theocratic facism than to have to share the world with people they don't understand. They believe by supporting Putin, they'll achieve their goals, which to date, has show to be an effective strategy.

Republicans, the elected ones and the ones that just vote R, have become the enemies of Democracy globally, and within the United States.

They realized fighting a war of artillery and attrition against Russia is a bad idea

Massive swell of people to make any progress to have something to campaign with for Putin's re-election. Ukraine has been generally running low on artillery and can't fully capitalize on countering large unit offenses. The Ukrainians have a lot of western equipment but are low on funds to supply them.

Russia has been trying to get this for a few months, estimates show ~30k Russian solider fatalities and over 400 tanks/infantry vehicles.

From what I know it was strategically important to the Donetsk region, which Russia would like to get back under control. It’s also a bragging point for the “election” because it’s the largest advance they’ve had since last May, they pushed a ton of lives through the meat grinder to take it.

source

As to the counteroffensive, there’s a page about it on wikipedia! It wasn’t as successful as they’d hoped, they didn’t even manage to get the minimum goal. They’ve been focusing on taking out the Black Sea fleet, overcoming anti air in Crimea, and sabotaging fuel depots inside Russia since.