Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[mirhond]

I wrote a long time ago that the Ukrainian forces might be overall badly trained, poorly equipped, wrongly led but they exist and are increasingly making it harder for the enemy which has attacked their country.

It is a rather fluid situation indeed, with more blood getting spilled each day Putin's war continues. He is certainly not making lots of friends in Ukraine, even if sweet Mariachi songs and friendly chants praise him.

You forgot to mention that the majority Ukrainian soldiers (who are either conscripts or contract soldiers) participating in COIN are not going to die for "Poroshenko's yacht", and the only reliable and highly motivated troops available for Kiev are the National Guard made of die-hard Ukrainian Nazi, that's why it took entire month and several thousand of foot solders in the field to chase off a handful of separatists from small town Krasny Liman, for example.
"Ukropians" amassed from 10,000 to 30,000 of regulars with armor, artillery and airpower against no more than 3,000-5,000 militias (well, probably 20% of them are hardened Soviet veterans and even Russian serviceman on duty) equipped with no more than infantry weapons - and still they have no major success.
Your tale of

overtly Russian formations

is wishful thinking.