>>507080086
Dismantling the largest active military in Europe(500k active on Feb 2022 with 1.4mn reservists) and exterminating the largest armoured force(16,000 armoured vehicles before NATO donations even came) behind Russia itself with a much smaller initial invasion force(just 160,000+ 55,000 DPR/LPR militia spread across such a vast territory) at relatively low casualties throughout the war is extremely impressive. This act alone has terrified everyone west of the Ukraine.
Not losing a battle for over 2 1/2 years heading towards 3 years now is also very impressive and stopping the "overwhelming number" offensives(Ukraine's hybrid planned directly by NATO grand offensive at Zaporozhye being the biggest and riskiest by far) from ever succeeding is also extremely impressive. Facing off against 32 nations giving constant support(granted only 5 of them actually matter)
Their adaptations and variants to equipment and tactics have also been fascinating to witness and everyone is watching and emulating it making changes to their own equipment and upcoming future equipment replacements.
Depleting NATO stockpiles in the process.
They started badly in the north in 2022 with a lot of mistakes, paid heavily for it in the first 8-12 weeks and there were two times in summer-autumn 2022 when Russia could not have just lost the entire war but literally 50% of their entire deployed force at the time but ever since the clusterfucks(caused by not enough men deployed and being overstretched) and Surovikin's masterful psy op evacuation at Kherson succeeded. They've been stable and holding firm ever since with attrition warfare combined with aerial and artillery supremacy while advancing at key areas to shatter Ukraine's only truly defensible terrain.
Ukraine's failed Kursk invasion sped that up significantly and Russian momentum since hasn't stopped advancing and is only growing daily. You're clearly not paying close daily attention to this war and what's happening.
