Got to hand it to the state department, it took them four months but they finally got Putin to stop blue balling us and shoot his load. Very inconsiderate of Russians to start the action while I'm asleep though.
It's hard to tell much from all the panicked rumours and disinformation. By the looks of it, the years of training, based on experience from Georgia war, paid off, while Russian ad suppression missions were completely ineffectual in 2008, they seem to be a success this time. Given the Ukrainian AD is 80s Soviet tech with minimum modifications, they were able to prepare themselves well. Of course it would be possible that Ukrainians played it smart and simply hid away most of their mobile AD assets, to play hide and seek games like Serbs did in 1999.
Ukrainian forces out in the open are going to get hammered badly, Russian motorifle and armored can break through into depth if their artillery is silenced, leaving the reduction of defended urban areas to Novorussia forces. We will see how well the Javelins perform against top of the line Russian armor, or if the Russians have counter to them, Syrians managed to develop TOW spoofing system, so Russians could also develop Javelin countermeasures - they probably got some from Ukraine via bribes.
The best Ukrainian units are holding the front line in Donbass, have extremely vulnerable flanks and could be easily cut into multiple pockets if left in place. The best move would be dispersed retreat to important crossroads and major urban centres and try to bleed Russians there, but Ukrainian high command showed persistent tendency to let their forces get encircled in 2014/15.
Taking Russia friendly areas like Donbass and Odesa would be relatively straightforward, but I reckon other major population centres will be merely blockaded, while major military formations and installations are destroyed as taking them would be too problematic.