> Have the Russians proven they are weak?

Yes. They have shown they are not well organized, have poor leadership, have defective planning, are terrible at logistics, have poor discipline in the ranks.

In fairness to the Russian military they are probably pretty unmotivated. A lot of them seem to have no idea why they were there having been told they were taking part in exercises. Also had Putin let on they were suppose to kill their peaceful neighbours for his self aggrandisement they probably would not have been enthusiastic.

"Certainly the war in the northeast has proven incompetent,"

Eh. I don't understand others military analysis. Russia is doing the right thing to just sit a convoy north of Kyiv. Ukraine doesn't have air power anyway. If they rolled into Kyiv it would be a urban combat meat grinder. They are better off waiting until the forces from the south and east meet south of Kyiv. Then they can surround Kyiv and shell it to rubble [what they learned in berlin]. Wait for white flags, then roll it. Ukraine needs to wipe out that northern convoy NOW.

They arent tactically waiting in that convoy, they got stuck and are being picked off little by little. You must realize how fucked you are when some random farmers are towing away $25mil worth TOR SAM systems away https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD8z_kGe7rs pretty regularly now. This is the third one documented on video.

The Russians are incompetent beyond belief. I thought the farmers were lucky when they confiscated the first tank, but now it's happening all the time. Have you ever seen Iraqi farmers towing away American tanks?

Incompetent or can't be arsed? If you were conscripted into the Russian military what would you do? Personally I'd be happy to go for a tea break while some farmer towed the vehicle.

Do you think the recent shipments from the US of 17,000 anti-air and anti-tank missiles is enough to alter the calculation by much?

Yes. They are going to switch to vacuum explosives. They wont risk their tanks getting to close to Kyiv. They will just level Kyiv from a distance using dummy explosives. That is why everything is parked north. They are trying to bring up more TOS carriers from the south and east.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOS-1

Vacuum explosives aren't nuclear, but god damnit: https://pomf2.lain.la/f/7vj9hxrh.mp4

They've slowly but steadily also made progress in the North, as maps like this one [1] can attest. Kharkiv in the East keeps pretty steady, though.

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNMiInhXIAQHEdl?format=jpg&name=...