With due respect to the late Queen Elizabeth, the really big news of the week is Ukraine's spectacularly successful offensives on two fronts.
A few thoughts follow.
The current phase of the war started with the long-expected Ukrainian offensive south into the Kherson province. It moved slowly, at first, but the Ukrainians have made more rapid gains recently.
The Ukrainians have destroyed or at least put out of commission all the bridges on the Dniepr River (Dnipro in Ukrainian) the Russians were using to resupply their forces in Kherson. There are some 30,000 Russian troops there. They can't subsist on the limited supplies that can be brought in by air and pontoon bridges (which can't support trains and really big trucks). The Ukrainians seem to have created a pocket here that could lead to the destruction of a large Russian army. Maybe the Russians can break out and/or rebuild the bridges. This doesn't seem to be likely and isn't looking great on their part.
If the Ukrainians liquidate the Kherson pocket, they will have eliminated the biggest Russian territorial gains of the war, and can begin to threaten Crimea.
The really big surprise is not the success in the south, but that in the northeast, near Kharkiv. There, the Ukrainians seem to have achieved a breakthrough, capturing large amounts of territory, and also taking many prisoners. In the process, they have captured Izyum and other key rail junctions.
Unlike the attack in the south, the offensive in the north was unexpected, and obviously took the Russians by surprise. The Ukrainians' ability to mount two big offensives at the same time is a major achievement for them.
If you read the reports by media, and even by Russian "milbloggers," it appears the Russian retreat has become a rout, at least in many places. If not checked, this could result in the collapse of the Russian army on large parts of the front.
By their very nature, routs are contagious. If the unit next to yours breaks and runs, that increases the likelihood yours will do the same, for fear of being trapped and killed or captured. If you think the man next to you is likely to run away, that makes you more likely to run yourself, and so on. There are many historical examples of this kind of contagion leading to collapse in military history. We saw it with the Afghan army just last year. Even very good armies can be susceptible to this dynamic. A famous example is the collapse of the German army in 1918. They were the best army in the world.... until suddenly they weren't, because they had had enough and began to fall apart. Today's Russian army was never that good to begin with!
Why are the Russians getting routed like this? Important factors include low morale and poor leadership. But I would also point to the enormous casualties they have suffered. Western analysts think it's about 20-30,000 dead since the start of the war. The Ukrainians say it's over 50,000. The latter figure is probably inflated. But even the former is huge (several times more than all the dead the US is has suffered in all our wars since Vietnam combined). The Russians deployed only about 200,000 troops to this theater in all. Even with reinforcements, we're talking, say, 25,000 dead and probably 3 times that many wounded out of, say, 250,000 total. If one out of every three of your friends and comrades has been killed or wounded, that has to be demoralizing! And the rate is likely higher in frontline combat units.
An additional factor may be that various ethnic minorities are overrepresented in Russian frontline military units. If you're a Chechen or a Tatar, you may not be that enthusiastic about dying for Putin's "Russian World," especially as things start to go badly!
While part of what we are seeing is the result of Russia's failures, you have to also give credit to the Ukrainians. They have massively improved their armed forces over the last 8 years, and even over the months of fighting since February. They've assimilated Western weapons and tactics, and learned to exploit the Russians' flaws. It's a night and day transformation from the ramshackle performance of the Ukrainian military in 2014, when the Russians easily seized Crimea and much of the Donbass with little resistance.
Over the last few weeks, Zelensky has been hardening his positions. He's been saying he wants to expel Russian forces from all Ukrainian territory, including even Crimea. This is a notable shift from the offers he made early in the war, when he was apparently willing to settle for a withdrawal to the February 24 lines (which would leave Russia holding on to Crimea and their other 2014 gains). Can Ukraine really retake Crimea? I still think it's a tough nut to crack. But the odds look better than a few weeks ago.
If the rout continues, the reality of the situation cannot be hidden from the Russian public for much longer. Indeed, even Russian state TV has turned more negative in recent days. Putin's regime could become shakier, though it's too soon to say whether there's any real chance of him falling.
In the past, military defeat has lead to pressure for liberal reform in Russia. Precedents include the Crimean War (helped lead to the abolition of serfdom and many other reforms), the Russo-Japanese War, and the defeat in Afghanistan in the 1980s. But there is also some chance that Putin's failure will empower even worse nationalists than himself. The West should be cognizant of this, and do everything possible to depict the war as a failure for the entire ideology of nationalism, not just for one man (much like defeat in WWII effectively discredited fascist nationalism in Germany and Italy).
Much more can be said, and some of the above could be reinforced or invalidated by developments in the fighting. The Russians might still be able to restabilize their front lines after giving up additional ground. We still don't know, for example, whether the rout will spread to the Donbass, too (it may have done so a little, just in the last few hours). But this is enough for now. Post is probably too long already!