Has the momentum of the war swung back to the Russian side?
Yes.
Seems like they are slowly gaining ground over the Ukrainians and taking over the eastern regions.
Yes. Key word
slowly.
Ukraine seem to be losing many soldiers and cannot hold the Russians back.
No.
Russia is putting everything it has to retain what slow grinding momentum it has. If Ukraine could not hold it back, it would already be in Kiev.
Ukraine is fighting in the optimal manner for its overall strategic position in the war.
Every day Ukraine sacrifices its land to retain soldiers.
Every day Russia sacrifices soldiers to gain land and break resistance.
Ukraine appears to feel it will need soldiers later more then it needs land now.
Russia appears to keep Ukraine off balance, hoping to eventually knock Ukraine out and into surrender.
wild cards:
NATO weapons, Ukraine mobilization, Russian military districts, the famine, Russian sanctions, etc.
Russian moral is rock bottom. Russia has no senior officers left, they are all dead - at least from the Western District command.
This is not true.
Firstly, if Russian moral was rock bottom, it would not be able to advance at all.
Secondly, we see Russian senior officers dying every day. Clearly, Russia has more senior officers.
All this from Ukraine's tactics of flexible defense. Push when they can hurt the Russians badly. Otherwise pull back slowly and wear them down.
Yes.
More and more NATO weapons are flooding the Ukrainian battle space, and they are innovative in using cheap Chinese Alibaba drones to bypass Russian air defense to attack targets at will far behind enemy lines.
A few hundred NATO cannons does not mean Ukraine has gained an advantage against a few thousand Russian cannons.
So Russia has no momentum. They have very little left of whatever they had in getting what they got in Donbas. They have so little operational forces left that they are stripping training personnel and equipment from Russia and sending it to the front lines. Which means the next lot of Russian soldiers will be poorly trained, if at all, before going to the front lines.
But Russia does have momentum, we see them taking a little nibble every day.
That might just be propaganda about stripping training personnel. Russia has five military districts, so far only the western one has engaged in Ukraine. Russia should have plenty of depth to draw from, unless of course said depth does not exist.
Its a stalemate, but leaning towards Ukraine.
Optimistic, but plausible. I certainly hope so.
For Russia to gain the momentum they either have to drag Belarus into the war
Seems unlikely. Belarus government has avoided putting its own people into Ukraine, and pushing the matter is a bad roll of the dice for Russia.
Right now Russia can use Belarus bases, but we already saw Belarus push back against Russia using its people in Ukraine once. Russia pushes hard, and Belarus is just as likely to revolt against Russia.
or mobilise Russia for war
This does nothing for Russia, which is why we are not seeing it.
Every soldier needs to be fed, clothed, armed, supplied, and trained. With Russia barely able to keep its momentum going, it seems unlikely Russia has the resources to spare for spending months training fresh soldiers.