Ukraine is "winning" so much that they are begging for NATO intervention and accepting foreign fighters.

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https://news.antiwar.com/2022/04/20/russia-now-controls-80-of-luhansk-region-in-the-donbas/

Russia now controls 80% of the Luhansk oblast in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, the Luhansk governor said, according to The Associated Press.

Before Russia invaded on February 24, the Ukrainian government controlled about 60% of Luhansk, which is one of two regions that makes up the Donbas.

Gov Serhiy Haidai said Russia has stepped up its attacks in Luhansk and captured the city of Kreminna. Now, the Russian forces are moving to take the cities of Rubizhne and Popasna.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Russia was starting a new “stage” of its invasion of Ukraine as attacks increased in the east. Fighting is also raging in the Donestk oblast in the Donbas.

Russia has made clear that its current focus in Ukraine is on “liberating” the Donbas as its forces have withdrawn from the northern areas near Kyiv. The separatists in the breakaway republics of Donestk and Luhansk first declared independence in 2014 after the US-backed ousting of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

https://news.antiwar.com/2022/04/20/ukraine-offers-talks-with-russia-to-evacuate-civilians-soldiers-from-mariupol/

Ukrainian officials on Wednesday offered to hold a special round of talks with Russia to evacuate Ukrainian troops and civilians that are still in the besieged city of Mariupol.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who has been leading negotiations with Russia, offered the talks on Twitter. “Yes. Without any conditions. We’re ready to hold a ‘special round of negotiations’ right in Mariupol. One on one. Two on two. To save our guys, Azov, military, civilians, children, the living & the wounded. Everyone,” Podolyak wrote.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/20/our-last-days-ukraine-commander-in-mariupol-appeals-for-help

‘Our last days’: Ukraine commander in Mariupol appeals for help.

Serhiy Volyna, the leader of Ukrainian marines in besieged city, appeals for extraction as Russian forces close in.

https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/04/poland-wont-recognize-russian-gains-ukraine-ambassador-says/365916/

Poland Won’t Recognize Russian Gains in Ukraine, Ambassador Says.

The ambassador said European allies will face “tremendous pressure” to return relations with Russia to normal after the war.

Poland will not recognize land captured by Russia during the war in Ukraine as Russian territory, the Polish ambassador to the United States said Wednesday.

“We have never and we will never recognize Russian jurisdiction over Crimea or Russian jurisdiction over those two breakaway provinces in the East. It’s absolutely impossible. The current Polish government and any other Polish government no matter the political affiliation…will never recognize Crimea as Russian territory,” Magierowski said, earning a round of applause from the audience.

This proves that the current Polish government is just as cucked as the Western European governments. What this Polish Ambassador to the United States says makes no sense. He is denying historical facts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimea

"In 1783, Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire as the result of the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Crimea became an autonomous republic within the Russian SFSR in the Soviet Union. In 1954, the Soviet Union transferred Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR from the Russian SFSR."

Crimea wasn't even a part of Ukraine until 1954. The Soviet government collapsed 37 years later in December 1991.

"On 19 February 1954, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree on the transfer of the Crimean region of the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR. At that time no vote or referendum took place, and Crimean population had no say in the transfer (also typical of other Soviet border changes). After the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, doubts have been expressed – from the Russian side by all means, but even by Western historians (Richard Sakwa, "Frontline Ukraine. Crisis in the Borderlands", 2015) – about the very legitimacy of the 1954 transition of Crimea to Ukraine; in the critics' view the transition contradicted even the Soviet law."

Crimea is Russia, just like Kosovo is Serbia.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/20/more-than-5-million-ukrainians-have-fled-since-russian-invasion

The United Nations’ refugee agency says more than five million Ukrainians have been forced to flee their country in less than two months since the Russian invasion, creating an unprecedented refugee crisis.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/21/un-chief-seeks-putin-zelenskyy-meetings-to-negotiate-end-to-war

Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, has separately requested meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in their countries’ capitals to try to negotiate an end to the nearly two-month war in Ukraine.

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BTW Ukraine wasn't a small, defenseless nation. They had the 2nd largest military in Europe in early February 2022.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_of_Ukraine

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 (see Novo-Ogaryovo process), the newly independent state of Ukraine inherited one of the most powerful force groupings in Europe.

Altogether the Armed Forces of Ukraine included about 780,000 personnel, 6,500 tanks, about 7,000 combat armored vehicles, 1,500 combat aircraft, and more than 350 ships.

Ukraine and NATO estimate that 2.5 million tons of conventional ammunition were left in Ukraine as the Soviet military withdrew, as well as more than 7 million rifles, pistols, mortars, and machine guns. The surplus weapons and ammunition were stored in over 180 military bases, including in bunkers, salt mines and in the open. As of 2014, much of this surplus had not been scrapped.

According to wikipedia, the Ukrainian military currently has:

245,000 active personnel

220,000 reserve personnel

40,114 deployed personnel

But on 01/30/2022 the wikipedia article about the Ukrainian military had these numbers:

Active personnel 405,000

Reserve personnel 250,000

Deployed personnel 60,000