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To be fair, I think English speakers like me can make our own decisions based on the multiple russian speaking sources here. I am personally interested in what the pro russian arguments are so I know how people think (and also to feel like I am not in an echo chamber!)

To be fair, I think English speakers like me can make our own decisions based on the multiple russian speaking sources here. I am personally interested in what the pro russian arguments are so I know how people think (and also to feel like I am not in an echo chamber!)

Glad to know, that you are Russian, comrade.  
Regarding the ammo, not every Russian is agreeing with you. Let's look together at the attached screenshot (I will translate it below).
 
 

The bolded part is one that I don't completely agree with, at least as far as future prospects go. While NATO artillery is increasingly important, and will be doing most of the heavy lifting, the soviet types are there to stay, and I expect their mean usage to increase in the future from the low point we're seeing now.
What I mean is that ammo production in the former Warsaw Pact countries is being restarted, and there will be steady stream of ammunition available. There was talk about production lines being restarted in Bulgaria and Romania not long ago. Mesko, main Polish arty ammo manufacturer (whose offer includes basically everything UA uses save for heavy MLRS and Giatsint/ Msta ammo) signed a contract with UA on Eurosatory. Details are unknown but rumors have it they are working at full capacity lately. And I'm sure the same goes for Czech and Slovak manufacturers too. And then there's Finland...
As for tube availability, at least in SPG department there's a lot of equipment available in WarPac countries. Nothing was delivered lately cause of the lack of ammo, but if the tubes themselves were to become the limiting factor, it can be alleviated easily.
 

Sometime ago there was discussion about whether RU forces can live next to dead bodies of their comrades. Also, we discussed reports of recruiting criminals into RA. Here is an interesting quote - a recent sketch from RU front line. 
Marines are supposed to be an elite. Yet this group of marines are either low level thugs or outright prisoners. Chifir is not something pleasant to drink and is not used in the Armed Forces.  

Part 2
 

Not quite. If I got it right (as per his previous explanations), he expects the last one offensive - so called Battle of Initiative. As far as I understood RU command is in denial stage and do not want to stop offensive operation for fear of losing initiative. So, they are preparing a new one for the sake of keeping UKR from starting big push anywhere else.
Meanwhile he rants about sudden RU warehouses explosions.
Artillery adds dignity, to what would otherwise be an ugly brawl.

Brutal video of death of Ukrainian soldier who tried to cover his wounded collegue. Brave guy - in US, for such action he would probably earn Medal of Honour. In this war there are probably dozens if not hundreds of similar nameless feats.
 
Also, tension remain sky high in Belarusian direction- medics are forbidden to left the country, Belarussian soldiers are keep in the field constantly training already for some time, there is also visibvle movement from ammunition depots. Lukashanka's statement hardened as well in last several days (he said he "made decision long ago'); judging by his rants, both countries are already at serious war. Perhaps Putin pressures him to do something, but it still seems he is doing everything he can not do to anything...
Ukrainian officials (Podolyak lately) constantly send messages to Belarus to **** off, they seem to believe Ru+BL soldiers in the North may at least harass their troops along the border to keep their forces occupied there.
This may still be a game "I know you are bluffing so I will bluff too".

interesting comment from RU volunteer about local residents from recently captured areas.

I read here our local analysts and there is an opinion that one of the sides is deliberately provoking everyone else to the active phase of the Third World War with the involvement of an increasing number of participants in these deliberate attacks on residential buildings with many human casualties. (I hope you do not need to explain which side).
Thus, perhaps the side is trying to destroy the rest of the competitors in this fire of war, because it cannot remove them in any other way. "Soft power" is a too complicated concept for this side.
(I will be forced to write "this side", "that side" because of the arbitrary interpretation of the criminal law in my country. Sorry.)

They are grabbing everybody they can
 

Another rant from Murz regarding comms preparedness of RU for war
I cut the rest - he ranted that it looks like Chinese manufacturers are flooding RU market with low quality batteries that have much smaller capacity than their price and documents suggests.
 
 

Girking confirms that Pushilin decree to control "humanitarian" goods most likely has the goal to decrease effectiveness of fighting aka hardcore LDNR units.
 

Uzbekistan is heating up. While it is not RU-UKR war, it is still what RU considers lebensraum RU Sphere of Influence. So, I am putting here the opinion of civilian "Girkin" (Nesmyanov). As usual it is RU moderate realist-nationalist take, grain of salt is required. But at least it might be a starting point to understand how it could or could not influence RU. 
 

If you think RU cannot get even crazier:
In Ekaterinburg somebody glued Putin portrait to a gas distributor surrounded by a fence as an obvious reference.

Big problem for local authorities. They could not leave it like this because it is Putin portrait. But they also could not scratch it off because it is Putin portrait. 
However, they found a solution. They covered it with cloth! 
 

As far as I remember once unanimous RU aviation guy claimed that RuAF cannot destroy UKR Air Defence because UKR Air Defence does not do what Air Defence supposed to do (from RU point of view). From RU point of view glorious Air Defence must gloriously defend an objective and if it comes to it then gloriously die defending it. RuAF would easily destroy such Air Defence.
But being inglorious UKR Air Defence instead of defending the objectives, started to hide and hunt RuAF airplanes. RuAF could destroy such Air Defence but only after sacrificing an unacceptable number of airplanes (I got impression that they literally had to bait AA with real airplane losing it in the prosses). AFAIR, he complained that it was wrong because Air Defence is not as important as an objective.
 
1. No. The lack of maneuvers we see is because both sides have not developed comprehensive counters to enemy drones' tactics yet (and seems have issues with CB). Any vehicular maneuver is very dangerous now. So, both sides frequently resort to infantry-arty slog. Imagine trying to fight WW2 where both sides cannot counter other Air.
2. No. It is just Suppression of Enemy Drone Systems (SEDS) is mandatory now for vehicular offensive. As long as SEDS is done, and you have enough vehicles with APS offensive is still possible. 
3. No. Leaving SEDS aside we generally do not yet have enough information about the weak sides of the drones. For example, we think of drones as a kind of all seeing eyes. But that is not the case. Civilian drones heavily used by both sides are relatively small. Their speed is not high, their endurance and range is rather low. Their signal range is also not that big. As a result, they operate around 1-2-3 km from drone team. Because you want to put most of your drone teams at front line there is indeed Gray Zone (1-2-3 km front line) where surprise is very difficult to achieve.
But outside it is different because to see there you need to use bigger specialized drones. But being specialized you do not have a lot of them. They are not readily available. They are higher up the chain, so info goes down slower. Finally, they usually just fly higher and are much more vulnerable to AA. 
As result it looks like RU developed the following tactics. They keep the front line with infantry teams but concentrating bulk of mechanized forces several km behind. The idea is to build up enough forces along the front line to be able to attack across several axis driving fast through gray zone. And the goal is not to breakthrough in to UKR rear but to reach an urban terrain several km behind front line before UKR starts bringing reinforcements with drones.
Urban terrain allows RU to mitigate to large extent UKR drone superiority and arty accuracy. So, it enables RU both defend and advance, suffering much less losses (relatively speaking). As far as I understood this is how they managed to dismantle Zolotoe-Gorskoe bulge.
 
Yes, feel the same. Even drone tactics are in infancy just like design of current drones. So far, we see important but still just a small glimpse of the future war. 

Excellent observations and questions.  Like a lot of things about this war - we simply do not know, let alone understand a lot of what is happening, let alone why, air competition is just one more.
A lot of this was has been about denial, in fact it often looks more like a competition of denial than anything else we recognize at times.  Denial - a defensive strategy designed to make it prohibitively difficult for an opponent to achieve objectives (https://www.britannica.com/topic/denial-military-strategy), which is a sub-strategy of the broader strategy of exhaustion.  Ukraine has elevated Denial to a strategic level, in a modern context, and frankly we are still trying to figure out the implications.
How did they do it?  That is the first question.  As far as we can tell from the evidence, my guess is that they quickly adapted C4ISR and the benefits of the modern weaponry they had to create very broad denial effects across the Russian capability portfolio, while the Russians have relied on traditional mass based systems, which are extremely expensive but can create a Denial effect for the Ukrainians as well.  Ukrainian defence has leveraged some major changes in modern technology on a broad scale and that applies in the air as well. 
Suppression of Enemy AD (SEAD) - so this is more than a single capability, it is an entire system.  It encompassed a massive C4ISR effort, air platforms that rely heavily on stealth, and even integrates SOF; it is a lot more than HARMs and Growlers.  In many ways SEAD is an entire specialized operation in itself, aimed at clearing and sustaining clearance of Integrated AD Systems (IADS).  IADS is an umbrella term; however, it leans towards large multi-layered integrated systems that link C4ISR to a network of AD systems designed to cover from the ground up (even into space).
The issue modern IADS have is UAS.  IADS were designed with large manned aircraft systems in mind form tac aviation to higher altitudes.  UAS bend these systems that by being extremely small and hard to detect, able to "pop-up" without any infrastructure needed to support them beyond two guys and some batteries, and low cost = every-freakin-where: we designed IADs to hit eagles, not sand-flies.  The most powerful thing UAS bring to the battlefield is ISR.  Strike is nice but the ability to extend the range of tactical ISR, and then integrate it into an operational system is one of the key takeaways from this war: seeing beats flanking.  Further, the RA reliance on concentrated mass makes them very vulnerable to this because it is very hard to hide a BTG.
The last brick in the wall are MANPADs.  A lot of the next gen MANPADs are passive and as the name suggests "man portable".  The reality is that MANPADs were always a problem for SEAD, no military has a baked in capability to counter two guys in a bush with a Stinger.  This is where air-land integration was supposed to come in, the land forces could support the air through control and sweeping of MANPAD threats (little threats), while air supported them by hitting the big stuff - a mutually supporting system.  Within SEAD, MANPADs were also a managed threat.  The theory was that if you blinded an enemy IADs system and took out the big radar guided systems, MANPADs would be minor nuisance, largely isolated and with limited range and altitude (5000 feet).  More something for tac aviation to worry about, and why we up-armoured stuff like Apaches. 
So UAS and real-time space based ISR and communications on the back of redundant civilian systems (including space based) makes the "blinding portion" really hard, maybe impossible.  I have no doubt in Ukraine we have distributed forces with UAS seeing CAS much farther out, handing off to others which then link back to MANPADs who can now position to wait for the aircraft - this is not even considering satellite based stuff being fed by the US.  And then MANPADs did not get the memo on "5000 feet", some of these systems can hit up to medium altitudes (e.g. star streak = 16k).  Finally, those traditional IADs are still integrated but not how we thought.  A higher altitude capable SAM that employs radar can now hide in silence, wait until the distributed C4ISR system picks up the fast movers and turn on at the last minute....like a big ass MANPAD.
Note that the above is what I think we are seeing in the UA system.  The RA is relying on traditional AD but the UA does not have a lot - so this is really air self-denial by virtue of very limited Ukrainian air capability.
So What?  Well we have air parity, largely through denial on both sides.   Ukraine has far too little, and generating massive airpower takes years.  Russia has significant capability but it was never set up for this environment, no one was.  I am not sure NATO could handle what is happening to be honest.   We would make something work but the costs would be much higher than we are used to and we would have to accept loss of air superiority at some altitudes as a basic assumption going in.  The Russians could likely achieve local air superiority above 20k right now but it would be very costly.  Going below 20k feet is very dangerous as we have flooded the UA with MANPADs, and the C4ISR thing I was talking about.  I expect they are saving it for an operational emergency or for the UA to put enough density in one place to make the effort worth it - trading a fighter-bomber for a single tank is not a good equation.
As to offence-defence.  Well Ukraine made defence offensive in the first phase of this war as Russian over-extension collapsed in the north.  I think they are doing versions of this right now in the Donbas as we have entered into an attrition-based contest.  Russia's answer to this has been to devolve in terms of warfare, falling back on a very old form of over-mass.  The only report of the Russians stopping the UA unmanned-indirect fire- infantry system has been in Severodonetsk, and they did so through extremely high concentrations of forces. That mass of Russian EW did nothing against space-based assets, so we do not know how badly they got mauled, nor Russian artillery.  Russia did show that if you push enough into a small space you can advance by inches - we do not know what it cost them nor how long they can sustain it.
This leads to some fundamental and big questions:  What does modern mass look like (sburke, don't do it!)?  Is manoeuvre warfare in trouble?  Is offence in trouble?  Is a principle of war - surprise, dead?  What does modern C4ISR really look like?  Hell, we are questioning Mission Command because in this environment higher commander may very well know much more, in higher resolution, than lower commanders.  
Nothing is definitive, but a whole lot is on the auction block right now and implications are pretty big if even a few of them are confirmed. 
I would close that the Russo-Ukraine war is an indicator of change but it is likely showing the tips of icebergs.  For example, we have not really seen what self-loitering can (or cannot) do in this war.  We know the US sent the smaller Switchblades, but I have seen no reports of significant numbers of the 600 series which can hit and kill with a Javelin warhead at the same ranges as the HIMARs.  We have not see NLOS ATGM or anti-vehicle systems like Spike.  We have not seen military grade micro and small UAS.  Sticking some grenades onto a few commercial drones is one thing, a swarm of military grade micro-drones that cannot be jammed, all armed with precision DPICM is something else entirely - and we have that technology right now.  Same goes for C4ISR, this is what Ukraine could do with a fairly ad hoc civilian backbone, some of the stuff being developed is truly impressive - and we have not even started to see the effects of AI/ML.
The Crimean War of 1854 is often referred to as the "First Modern War", well history is a circle, and I suspect the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 will likely go down in history as the "The First Future War". 
 

Regarding NATO vs RU Arty ammo issues from Myrakhovsky
 

Interesting development. Yesterday Chairman of the Donetsk Supreme Council Pushilin published decree creating commission for approval of humanitarian goods. Only licensed companies will be able to import such goods after submitting formal requests for approval. Trick is that in LDNR drones, personal armor, medical supplies, comms and so on are counted as humanitarian goods.
Basically, Putin is putting uncontrolled volunteer non kinetic war supplies under official RU control. In RU it usually means those who are not loyal to RU officials will be cut off from supplies. But there are no any un loyal volunteers anymore. They were dealt with already. There are only those who are displeased with Putin "softer" approach to UKR (Tyra and Azov exchange scandals).
Not only Putin forcing nat propagandists to use softer rhetoric toward UKR, he is also preparing to pull the war supply plug from hardcore LDNR.  

It's a joke - in USSR there was cheap and prevalent portwine "777". Because "7" has similar form to an axe, people called this wine "three axes" and this name moved to US howitzers

While navigating RU propaganda sewers (it was by accident) I noticed something interesting. They are publishing articles about RU government failures.
For example, about the failed import replacement program.
The question is why they are publishing failures of Putin controlled government? 
Then came news about the arrest of Vladimir Mau
 Mau is a member of so-called Anatoly Chubais team. Chuibais and his team is part of the weakened Party clan. And all men mentioned in the article above are also civil servants from Party clan.
We see Putin firing the first volleys in the new war for power between clans. As we already discussed he is laying blame for military failure on generals from Military clan and simultaneously laying blame on economic failures on civil servants of Party clan. And because Party clan is closely related to liberal Russians (Chubais came to government pretending to be liberal politician) Putin is also trying to channel nationalist anger toward liberals in order to suppress possible liberal rebellion.
The Military clan also firing at Putin saying controversial Azov fighters exchange was done of Putin's order.
Waiting for response from Party clan. 
Stay tuned for the next episode of the reality show Death of Stalin 2. 

Some more info about RU economy
State of Ru import
 
Gasprom state
 
State of Sberbank - It is most popular RU bank.
Lesson on how to speak as patriotic RU - the economy demonstrates excellent negative strengthening. 

It is an unofficial joke now.
Putin won again!

I roughly translated the whole article. It is not just Putin thoughts. It is RU official point of view that will be distributed to the ordinary RU citizens. This is what they will be told to think and reply to when talking with heinous foreigners. 
 
Girkin comment regarding above
 
My personal comment is looks like Putin is having issues formulating his thoughts. Possibly his mental health is indeed declining.

The idea of a 105mm high velocity gun just won't die. A 120mm breach loading mortar with a couple  new "common launch rails"  make a thousand times more sense. And even that assumes any sort of direct fire vehicles are still a thing. I assume this comes standard with the successor to the Trophy APS?