Has the Ukrainian military held on to Dnipro in this case as well?
It should, Yes. For now, at least.
BTW, pro-Russian analysts such as Anatoly Karlin and Richard Hanania appear to have missed a couple of major ideas:
1. Just because a population doesn't breed a lot doesn't mean that it can't have many brave people. (Brave = be willing to fight to protect their country, et cetera.)
2. Low fertility doesn't matter as much for an insurgency when a country's base population is large or at least relatively large. If a country of 150 million invades a country of 5 million, then all other things being equal, the 5 million-strong country's insurgency is likely to run out of steam much faster than a 35 million-strong country's insurgency against a 150 million-strong invading country. For instance, if Russia kills several hundred thousand Chechens, then Chechnya is essentially finished. Fatally weakened, certainly, since there are less than 1.5 million Chechens in total. But Ukraine could theoretically afford to take losses in the hundreds of thousands if the necessary will for this will actually be there. There will still be many millions of Ukrainians left over afterwards, after all.