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The other day I saw a guy comparing a snail crawling towards Ukraine for a year vs the Ruzzians invading for a year. Guess who covered more distance.
The Russians obviously understand that territory is, in a lot of cases, a liability. High cost in taking it, and ongoing cost in holding it in many situations. The only time area really matters a lot is at the end of the conflict.
This is a pretty easy concept and I don't think that the reason it seems to escape the 'Ukrainians' is because it is difficult. It's one of the main supports for my hypothesis that the 'leadership' of Ukraine considers the loss of Ukrainian souls in this operation to be 'a feature, not a bug.'
Ukraine is focused on 2D (aka, area.) Russia is focused on 3D (aka, volume as in 'gas in the tank'.) Pokrovsk is a good illustration about how 'area' is very cheap and pretty much there for the taking when the enemy runs out of gas. The goal is to get the enemy into a situation where they are completely out of gas and without options to get more so that they don't just run out of gas locally and as the result of an unforced error (Kursk <-> Pokrovsk).
If it a question of time-area, then it did not go well for Ruzzia, considering they have lost a full year worth of land in the couple of weeks of the Kursk offensive.
The data disproves you hypothesis of Ukraine seeing a feature in Ukrainians being killed - I mean, if it even if such unsubstantiated comment has to be disproven.. The average age in the Ukrainian army is very high compared to others because the government is trying to have a future for the country.
Ukraine is not focused on land, they are focusing in asymmetric war. It is not possible, as of now, to hold all the land at no-matter-the-price, but it is possible to make it economically and politically not worth it. This is how smaller countries defend themselves - not only Ukraine.