I was recently watching Lazerpig's breakdown of the Challenger 2 tank. I won't post it here as there's a section on The Scum (I skipped that bit, but I think it generally points out how they steal news from reputable sources to pass it off as their own, before going on to cite what the source had said).
However, the video does move on to highlight how Britain was essentially "bought off" by the oligarchs, and how Cameron as PM absolutely gutted the UK military by scrapping ships, subs, planes, tanks, and sacking off personnel under the guise of "austerity". And apparently was getting quite a bit of Russian money into the bargain. And naturally, there was the Russian influence over Brexit (wonder if that's why Frottage is in hiding?)
On the positive side it notes how the Russians started the war with (on paper) 14,000 towed artillery pieces, and are now down to about 6,000 pieces, of which only perhaps 4,000 might be serviceable. And whilst they are producing more planes than they lose, pilots are a different matter. And Europe is now inexorably ramping up its military production, especially artillery shells.
So the bottom line is that Russia desperately needs to end this war, and its ability to slow and stall the EU and NATO by having trojan states within both organisations seems to be far more limited than was envisaged.
So it's not all doom and gloom. It probably explains why Russia is pushing so hard. I don't think Putin really hopes to "win" at this point - he's just trying to grab as much territory as possible for when the inevitable negotiations begin.
The real take home is that the UK urgently needs a new tank and in large numbers. The Challenger 3 upgrade can at best be seen only as a stop gap.