More likely, we are seeing the cumulative effects from years of systematically taking out elements of the air defenses. It seems pretty clear that a) Russia's progress on the ground war has been stalled for nearly a year now as Ukraine has strangled re-supply chains, and b) Ukraine is now able to remove air defenses faster than Russia can rebuild them.
Ukraine seems as strong and determined as ever. Time is favoring Ukraine. There is always more spirit for defending one's own country than invading another, especially when the costs of the invasion are so high.
The parallels between Putin's invasion of Ukraine and Trump's invasion of Iran are strong and obvious. Both rulers simply could not even entertain the thought that they might not win quickly with overwhelming force.
The big problem now is that both Russia and the US have nukes. The international challenge is to convince Trump and Putin to give up their wars and go home instead of launching nukes. But it does seem that Zelenskyy is setting up to demand Crimea as part of the settlement. That will be a tough one for Putin to swallow. Zelenskyy seems to be pursuing a strategy to make it so unpleasant on the Russians camping in Crimea that they leave on their own, leaving no real options for Putin.
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