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This situation is true, but implication is not necessarily what you understand. The underlying issue that a big % increase of a very small number is a still a small number, and that proportional increases don't continually scale
The theme of 2024 has been that Russia has significantly increased its rate of territorial gains in the Donbass, but 'significant' comes with the contextual caveat of 'compared to 2023.' The Russian gains in 2024 look proportionally impressive in part because the scale of the zoom-in maps was consistent for so long, but the degree of zoom-in was itself a result of how little the Russians were advancing, justifying exceptional zoom in to show differences. This was, in turn, partly because they were focused on advancing in other places (where we no longer see maps).
On a larger scale, however, 2024 has been closer to the creeping artillery campaign in 2022 where artillery overmatch allowed slow-but-steady gains elsewhere on the Ukrainian front, places which didn't receive/retain such familiar maps because they were changing faster and then lost. Unlike in 2022, however, 2024 has not also had simultaneous major Russian military operations across the front- the Russian operations have been primarily focused on the few spots being covered. This is consistent with what was observed in 2023, with the slow-but-consistent Bahkmut. Russia focuses on two-three places at a time, and presses those, and then reaches a point where it transitions to somewhere else.
In short, increasing changes in the Russian position in the current parts of the Donbas aren't themselves evidence of Ukrainian systemic collapse, but where Russia is currently focusing fires. The Russians have always been able to consistently advance when and where they chose to concentrate fires.
The rates of change of territory even lead to changes in where the territory shifts from favoring the operational defense to the operational offense. The formerly defensive high ground the Ukrainians enjoyed in some places became more advantageous to further Russia offensives when the Russians captured them, whether by increasing offensive fires range (thus allowing more concentration of artillery) or compromising other position to prompt a withdrawal of Ukrainian forces (such as has recently happened at the Ukrainian logistic node whose name I can't remember atm).
These positional advantages can even compound. The advantage Russia has gotten from partial-encirclements (approaching 3-side encirclement) is significant. It allows Russia to park more artillery for more range of fires across more of the Ukrainian front and rear. Because more of the Ukrainian rear is in range of fires, high-value-but-costly Ukrainian assets- like air defense or artillery- can't be brought in nearly as close. Because UKR artillery is denied, more Russian artillery can be brought in for further artillery overmatch, and because air defense is blocked the Russians can bring in more glide bomb aviation and helicopters to contribute. This adds up, and consistently enables things like 10-to-1 fires advantages that let the Russian forces make successful rushes for trenchwork and displace the Ukrainians to retreat to less compromised defenses.
But this is positional advantage, not strategic collapse. The artillery army is at its strongest when it can surround the foe on three sides and negate their air defense and airpower, and this position is untenable for most defenders, but there's a reason that the ideal of warfare is about encirclement and not simply flanking. The Russians put the Ukrainians in a bad position, the Ukrainians eventually withdraw, but the withdrawal is a choice to not commit further resources holding untenable positions further, not itself evidence of a lack of resources to commit. The Kursk offensive, for example, demonstrated that the Ukrainians had more combat assets to send, but that they thought there was somehwere better to use them than in the most pressed parts of the Donbas.
The issue with positional warfare analysis is that momentum advantages gradually negate themselves.
When the rate of advance depends on favorable positioning, the victor goes from advantageous terrain to neutral or even unfavorable terrain as new equilibriums are found and defenses rebuilt. If the positioning was favorable, after all, the attacker would continue attacking and advancing. This is more along the lines of 'water runs downhill' than the gallantry of a stream for following the path of least resistance.
But when/if the Russians close the 3-year old Donbas pocket, they won't have a 3-side advantage anymore, but a much 'flater' front. These means less ability to stack fires, less ADA coverage of glide bombs, etc. This means that the Ukrainians can commit more of its limited forces more easily, and more effectively, with defenses that lead the Russians to limit their exposure until they can start re-creating that 3-flank advantage. On the other hand, depending on where they make a push, they themselves may face a three-front disadvantage where a push leaves them exposed rather than able to bring in superior fires.
In other words, rather than a maneuver-warfare acceleration effect- 'Russia is increasing its rate in the Donbas; after the Donbas it will further increase its rate of advance'- positional warfare has a reset-effect. 'The Russian position after the Donbas is no longer as favorable; after the Donbas the rate of advance will slow until Donbas-like contexts can be created again.'
This runs into the separate issue, which I'll address off of your next point.
And as long as those weapons continue to work at the ranges they do, that may be bad news for the Donbas front but it's good news for the ability of Ukraine to generate strategic resistance, because the Donbas isn't where Ukraine draws its ability to fight from.
The Russian glide bombs, as effective as they are, are not what the military would consider long-range weapons vis-a-vis normal indirect fire capabilities. They are launched from behind Russian lines, with the ability to get close limited by exposure to air defense. Since high-value air defenses won't be placed in pockets in range of tube-artillery supported by short-range drones, this is why the glide bomb strikes have been able to increase to >1000 a week: the Russians have a reasonably large array of targets in a zone they can reasonably know is exposed and safe to fight in.
But this makes them, in effect, a different sort of tube-artillery. Bigger boombs, harder to counter-fire, but not a meaningful threat to critical infrastructure / major supply nodes / depots. These are trenchlines, bunkers, or buildings. This is not good for the Ukrainians, but it is not the critical threat, especially if / when / as increasing long-range fires open up attacks on Russian rear areas. The glide bombs can't range those sort of capability-generations.
Shaheds might, but this gets into the limits of a Shahed drone. In short, it's not trivial, but it's not factory-destroying either, while there are indeed less AA rockets to shoot down Shaheds with, there are other limiting factors on their effectiveness, ranging from non-missile AA (not as effective, but a baseline), protection systems (like nets, additional baseline), or just the warhead limitations of a shahed drone. These are often much closer to 'can destroy a vehicle' than 'can destroy a building' payloads. You can throw a lot of Shaheds at a single target to make up in volume, but at that point you're just recreating the narrower and narrower focus of the artillery issue.
What matters more is that neither of these advantages is actually removing the ability of the Ukrainians to generate capabilities and forces, because those capabilities aren't located in the Donbas in the first place.
Ukraine could literally lose all the Donbas, and while it would the advantages of already-prepared defenses it wouldn't lose its force generation potential. Ukraine isn't depending on the remaining settlements in the Donbas for recruitment. Ukraine isn't producing its long-range weapons in the Donbas. Ukraine isn't receiving the import of foreign supplies through the Donbas. The Donbas isn't the Death Star at the battle of endor, where when the Emperor dies the imperial navy flees the field.
The Donbas is, in effect, a political trophy. Its conquest does not win the war for Russia / render the Ukrainians unable to fight. It may shape negotiations or political calculations, most notably Putin's willingness to claim victory with a face-saving 'I own all the territory' salve, but it's not vital to the Ukrainian ability to continue resisting.
But there is a choice, which combines with the fact that the biggest limitation on Ukrainian force generation (still) isn't actually manpower to recruit from, but the gear to equip them with, and the artillery ammunition to back them up with to negate Russia's fires advantages. The former is a question of the next year of foreign supply politics, while the later is something that has been expected to take into next year regardless.
The fact that Zelensky is in a position to resist Western calls to conscript 18-25 year olds is a mark against collapse desperation, not evidence of it (which it will inevitably shift to being characterized as when/if Zelensky does proceed with expanding conscription). The Ukrainian decisions to not conscript more earlier may be the 'wrong' one (I suspect we don't have the insight as to what the priorities actually are- such as if Zelensky wants to scale conscription with western arms deliveries so as to avoid public war support issues of sending ill-equiped troops into battle), but it has been one the Ukrainians felt they could make.
Manpower is one of those information fields where I'd caution you to be very, very cautious with narratives that don't have credible comparative numbers (such as Ukrainian desertion comparisons between years, or comparisons to Russian equivalent acts, or even comparisons to other countries in other conflicts,) especially when it is a field so plagued by deliberate propaganda campaigns. 'Ukraine's army is on the edge of collapse' has been a distinct propaganda theme for years now, and if I were a betting person I'd offer a bet that we'd be dealing with the same theme in twelve months because it is one of those 'maybe it wasn't true before, but it seems credible now' indefinite narratives that can appear credible no matter how many times it fails to materialize.
Is there a name for this kind of narrative? Because it seems like a common failure mode
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