As mentioned, the Ukrainians are used to losing territory - the Russians, not so much, and the fact that Russian state TV (whose head reports to Putin) is kind of panicking, is worth the tradeoff in territory. I'm still not sure why Russian state TV is acting the way they are - Margarita reports directly to Putin. They usually act as though they have an audience of one.
I take it as a sign that Russia has nothing left in the gas tank - there should be hundreds, thousands pouring into the Kursk region by air and truck every day, but Ukraine is still doing Ukraine things. That could mean that if Russia pulls back in the Donbass, they would have nothing left there, and the Ukrainians could drive a wedge right into that area.
Ukraine could be moving into areas where they could completely drive out the Russians (or capture/kill them) who are threatening Kharkiv, and then that would allow them to start to sweep north or south inside of Russia.
What's important is that Ukraine appears to have been holding back, and still has reserves. Russia has nothing.