I have caught up recently with the Ukraine war with new sources and I understand it better now.
1. In the first week of July, the Russian command halted in front of the Zelensky line and effectively performed an operational pause. It is evident that they assessed that they did not have the strength to retake the remainder of the Donbass.
So they initiated full-scale artillery and air offensive on 7/5 but winded down to limited ground operations. They gradually withdrew Russian professional military units from the Donbass and relocated them North and South, or back to Russia. The current announcement of an operational pause comes 1 1/2 months too late.
2. 2/3rds of the Russian army in the Ukraine is now in the rear and not holding the frontline. This suggests that the Ukrainian military is not seen as much of a threat to them. Russian air force has increased in size to 430 aircraft, 360 helicopters.
3. The Russians hugely expanded the Separatist militas with tanks, armored infantry vehicles, and artillery with many new mechanized infantry formations, new tank units, and new motorized infantry units. They now constitute a legitimate militia army and are actually the ones holding and attacking in the Donbass. Currently they are performing limited operations in reducing the defense-in depth, slowly grinding it away.
4. The Ukrainian professional army has likely already been destroyed by the Russians, with remnants melting into a large, ill-equipped militia army. The Donbass is now a siege of sorts, containing a large portion of Ukraine's army and is getting heavy strikes everyday, taking losses. The longer this occurs the force that holds it will degrade. The Western wonder weapons continue to inflict small setbacks to the Russians, that taken together incrementally slows them down.
5. Putin increased the size of the Russian military by 137,000. This and other signals implies that sometime in the Fall, the Russians will launch a strategic offensive with a rebuilt and refitted army to attack Ukraine.
