New day, new patience apparently.

The increase in oil price and softening of US sanctions will benefit the Russians, but it won’t make the war economy sustainable.

According to who? The sanctions can't be "on the verge" of working and also not be that important at the same time. We're talking about DOUBLE revenue on a per-barrel basis (so far!). Sanctions work by slowly choking out the supply of dollars until an economy suffocates. A flood of new dollars DOES completely reverse years of sanctions. So unless you believe the sanctions were not working (which I do by the way) then this matters a lot.

Western armories are running bare, but the same is true for the Russian ones. Both Ukraine and Russia are mostly using equipment as it’s being produced, and both Ukraine and the rest of Europe has been ramping up production capacity.

Do you remember years ago when the Europeans themselves came out and said the Russians were outproducing the entire West in artillery shells 3-to-1? Do you think that only applies to artillery shells? The West has DEINDUSTRIALIZED after decades of neglect, outsourcing, corruption, and financialization. The energy crisis in Europe is only shifting this into high gear.

Both Ukraine and Russia are mostly using equipment as it’s being produced

What evidence is there for this? You think the Russians have only made 2 Oreshnik missles? You think they are only making a few hundred Gerans a week?

The high energy prices are a problem in Europe, but compared to the situation in Russia (or Ukraine, for that matter) there’s nothing EXTREME about it.

This is honestly laughable. Europe is dying under the weight of their own vassalage. What do you think it means to have the highest energy prices in the world? How does that effect an industrial economy? Why did Volkswagen stop production at their main plant for the first time ever? Now it's about to get MUCH WORSE because Europe was extremely dependent on Quatari LNG. That LNG isn't waiting for the strait to open, it's already not being produced and liquefied, leaving a permanent gap in the world supply.

The reason peace negotiations have been hopeless, is because the Ukrainians and the Russians can’t agree on where the war is headed

Well you could say that. The West believes it's own propaganda which has been propping up this war for 3 years when it was already lost (the writing has been on the wall since the ill-fated Zaporizhzhia counteroffensive in '23). The pattern of big huge hype about any territorial gains, trailing off into ashamed whimpers in the press, has been followed in every disastrous "media counteroffensive" since: Kursk, Pokrovsk, Kupiansk, and now Dnipropetrovsk. THE UKRAINIANS ARE CRITICALLY SHORT OF INFANTRY AND HAVE BEEN FOR YEARS. LOOK AT REPORTS FROM ANY GROUND-LEVEL COMMANDER ON THE UKR SIDE. NO AMOUNT OF PRESS-GANGED RETIREES CAN CHANGE THIS.

Who is right is up to us

Spoken like a European

every single demand that the Russians have is against some pretty fundamental international law

Was it against international law when the Banderites engaged with their war against Russian speaking civilians in the Donbass for 8 years? Do you still not know about this because of how completely the wool has been pulled over your eyes by the western media? It's game over. The media narratives are collapsing under the weight of their own failure. This conversation doesn't matter any more for the fate of the current war, I'm only bothering so we can all spot the patterns if and when the West attempts to do this bullshit again.