Yeah, actively involved in defending. That includes waiting at the Northern border just in case, and the upper Eastern border and Odessa just in case, and spy hunting, mine clearing in North, which is still being demined. Less than half that number are actively involved in the South and East, where the bulk of the fighting is, and a lot of them are operating artillery and artillery support/logistics. Some are in the Kherson region where Russia is having its ars kicked.
They have repelled several attacks around Bakhmut and Soledar. We know this because Russia tried to claim it was already in these two places, which it always does when trying to attack. The line has not moved in that area for at least 5 days. Meanwhile, Russian forces in Kherson just lost 1 of only two bridges feeding them. The Ukrainians will give them time to consider withdrawal and then they will remove the other one if they fail to do so and starve them into surrender.
Yeah, if you call 200 dead, 600 wounded and losing a key supply bridge in Kherson yesterday comfortable, then they're real comfortable. Russia has had a huge economic advantage over Europe since forever. It has 10 time more natural resources than it could ever use, and yet it has still failed to have a better GDP per capita than the EU, PPP or nominal, because its leadership is economically ineffective. Any chance of a decent Russia economy was destroyed in the early 1990s by former Soviet officials selling off state assets and companies to friends and family and themselves for cents on the dollar, turning it into an oligarchy.
Russia made a huge mistake starting this war. It had already taken Crimea and secured its Black Sea fleet, as well as part of the Donbass and Ukraine wasn't joining NATO anytime soon. Now they stand to lose everything because Ukraine will want to fully remove Russia from Ukraine for security reasons, they won't want to be surrounded on 3 sides by Russia ever again, so they will take Crimea by cutting off the Kerch bridge and blocking supplies ships with Harpoon, Exocet and ATACMS missiles, and Russia will remain fully sanctioned until they do.
Back in 2013/14 Russia could have just negotiated continued use of Sevastopol and access peacefully and likely would have got it for the sake of continued peace. If Russia did this instead of what they did, Russia's economy would be ~2.5x as large as it is now and it would not be sanctioned at all. It could then have pumped some of that that extra money into defence to cover its security needs, whilst maintaining relations with Europe. This is why Russia will never capitalise on its tremendous economic advantage, its leadership is completely fvcking stupid.
