Wishful thinking has the upper hand in the battle to shape Western perceptions of the war in Ukraine.
Sympathy for the outnumbered and outgunned defenders of Kyiv has led to the exaggeration of Russian setbacks, misunderstanding of Russian strategy, and even baseless claims from amateur psychoanalysts that Putin has lost his mind.
A more sober analysis shows that Russia may have sought a knockout blow, but always had well-laid plans for follow-on assaults if its initial moves proved insufficient.
The world has underestimated Putin before and those mistakes have led, in part, to this tragedy in Ukraine. We must be clear-eyed now that the war is underway.Yet even the professionals at the Pentagon are letting sympathy cloud their judgement.

Just two days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Department of Defense briefers were quick to claim that failing to take Kyiv in the opening days of the war amounted to a serious setback.

DoD briefers implied that Russia’s offensive was well behind schedule or had even failed because the capital had not fallen.

But U.S. leaders should have learned to restrain their hopes after their catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Once again, U.S. and Western officials are falling into the trap of failing to understand the enemy and his objectives.

Allegedly, Putin believed that the Ukrainian government would collapse once Russian troops crossed the frontier and pushed to Kyiv, and that the operation has failed because the Ukrainian government remains in place.

Putin certainly hoped for a swift victory, but he clearly was not relying on his opening salvo as the only plan for success.

Rather, the Russian military was prepared to take the country by force if a swift decapitation strike fell short.

This kind of plan should be familiar to Americans who remember the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In the first hours of the war, the U.S. Air Force launched its ‘shock and awe’ campaign in an attempt to kill Saddam Hussein and other key leaders and bring down the government. Saddam survived, but the U.S. military was fully prepared to follow up with a ground assault.
A look at the Russian military offensive demonstrates there was a plan for a full-scale invasion, which Russia is now executing.

Conventional, mechanized warfare is a time and resource consuming enterprise, and an operation of this scope isn’t cobbled together in days.

The Russian offensive is taking place on four separate fronts. On a fifth front, in eastern Ukraine, which Putin declared independent last week, Russian forces are tying down Ukrainian troops that are needed elsewhere.

The bulk of the Russian forces are advancing southward from Belarus to Kyiv. Russian advance forces, including air, mobile and reconnaissance troops, have been engaged with Ukrainian troops outside of Kyiv since the start of the war.

A massive column of Russian troops, estimated at over 40 miles long, is just 20 miles north of Kyiv, and is likely assembling to surround the capital.

If Russian forces can take Kyiv and push southward to link up with forces on the Crimean front, thus splitting Ukraine in two, it would be a major blow to the Zelensky government.

https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2022/03/02/putin-not-crazy-russian-invasion-not-failing/

This is what the war front looks like

Zoom in, it is not debris below the standing soldiers but dead Ukrainian combatants

Remember the Chechen Commander that is reportedly KIA after landing in Ukraine?
That is Magomed Tushayev.
Well see him in Mariupol a week after. Probably rose from death

A chechen commander inspecting a rifle taken from a defeated foreign mercenary

Trouble

Don't mind people pushing the Ukrainians to their grave... NATO is trying to cripple Russia economy to stop their weapon advancement, is just part of the cold war, Ukraine was just a chess pawn.

Note:
The Ukrainian president should have known better at the early hours of the war. He should have declare Ukraine as a neutral state, resigned and seek for an asylum in another country. This would have safe this worst humanitarian disaster since world war 2

Pictures of DPR (Donetsk people's Republic) fighters, a breakaway territory from Ukraine with Russian soldiers fighting Ukraine troops

mike8804:
Don't mind people pushing the Ukrainians to their grave... NATO is trying to cripple Russia economy to stop their weapon advancement, is just part of the cold war, Ukraine was just a chess pawn.

Note:
The Ukrainian president should have known better at the early hours of the war. He should have declare Ukraine as a neutral state, resigned and seek for an asylum in another country. This would have safe this worst humanitarian disaster since world war 2

The targets now are the mercenaries. Thousands of them have been KIA. You know there is no protocol/provision for mercenaries in POW.

Many of them fell for the Western media lies. They thought Russian army is worn out or that Russia is fighting against the wish of the people the media project as invaded but when the came to Ukraine and were deployed to the front lines, they realised that they are the bad guys.

At the south they are engaging Chechen ever ready, battle hardened forces. If they want to escape, they will meet Russian troops. If they decide to hide, the local militia fighting for freedom from Ukraine will get them. If they manage to escape towards North, they meet Circassians that are lovers with the snow. Infact the few that managed to escape are warning others not to try it, that it's a trap.

No any single ukraine soldier lost his / her life, no any property is destroyed. Infact ukraine are winning the war 100% on media

Wahala

https:///intelslava/22853

����❗Chechen units of the Russian Armed Forces are inspecting a large ammunition depot, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine left without a fight in the city of Tokmak, Zaporozhye region.

Horus:
Russian Missile destroy Ukrainians barracks in the city of Nikolaev.
More than 120 Ukranians soldiers were present at the barracks

I saw this post earlier this morning

In Taegwolo's voice, ooo what a suffer.... Ukrainean has really suffer.

Your sources are also pro-russia.

BKayy:
Remember the Chechen Commander that is reportedly KIA after landing in Ukraine?
That is Magomed Tushayev.
Well see him in Mariupol a week after. Probably rose from death

The guy was never killed
I said many times here

Ukraine propaganda can’t win this war
Ukraine have been uploading same pictures from different angles all over again many times.
They need took back the airport close to Kyiv since day one but they lied about it

Ukraine press?

JudgeWilson:
In Taegwolo's voice, ooo what a suffer.... Ukrainean has really suffer.

NATO chihuahuas are so terrified they can't even yap yap yap after Mr. Khinzal dropped his first business card in Western Ukraine.

Operational range, if launched from a MiG-31K: 2,000 km.

500 kg warhead, conventional or nuclear.

Mach 10: 13 times faster than a Tomahawk.

Nazi sympathizers nightmare

seunny4lif:

The guy was never killed
I said many times here

Ukraine propaganda can’t win this war
Ukraine have been uploading same pictures from different angles all over again many times.
They need took back the airport close to Kyiv since day one but they lied about it

Ukraine press?

They are not recording anymore success so they have to rely on repeating the same pictures they started with.
The recent videos emerging from the battle front apart from Chechynans reconfirming to those that care that they are alive are Go-Pro videos recovered from dead Western Mercenaries that thought they are coming to make a content from the war for their Instagram/Tik-Tok/YouTube pages. Maybe they never heard of the Chechynans before. They thought they are about to fight some bunch of Amateurs.

Russia just deployed another batch of Chechnyans. DPR just took ugledar.

Ukrainian president is the biggest f00l I have ever seen.
How can one be sacrificing the lives of his people just like that?
I just pity those civilians that have lost their homes and are forced to be fugitives.

JubrilBuhari:
Ukrainian president is the biggest f00l I have ever seen.
How can one be sacrificing the lives of his people just like that?
I just pity those civilians that have lost their homes and are forced to be fugitives.

The people have their eyes opened since last week. They now know this is a western war on Ukraine soil.
Many have fled the country and many more are willing to leave if their bunker president does not force them to fight.

Go Russia, Go!
May God be with all Russian, DPR, LPR and Chechen troops

Comedian zelensky is now begging Russia for a peace talk.

He now realized that the west have been deceiving the Ukraine.

With all these Kiev would or should have fall or been captured since last week...!! Don't understand again...!!

FERNANDEZISBACK and nairaland mods Will not like this page. Even CNN and BBC knows Ukraine is going to ruins. Over 85% of Ukrainian military establishments is gone.

The worst part is... they're yet to report that a Ukrainian soldier has been killed here on nairaland.

Russia doesn't do street to street fighting, they'll just encircle the area and bombard everything turning it to one street.

Putin has been wanting this war for decades.

Putin won USA in Georgia and Syria so American is being cautious.

The missile that was used to bombard Ukraine underground weapon storage has never been used before and no one knows that Russia has it until it was used yesterday.

Putin threatened to deal with any country that intervened in that conflict with severe consequences the country has never experienced before...and they all kept quiet and abandoned Ukraine.

Germany didn't even parakeet on this sanctions and are still buying from Russia both Oil and Gas.

Russia is the number one in Gas exports and second on oil export even USA is still buying from them.

That clown of a president is a fool and he's getting served like it should.

Go and check what Ukraine was doing on Donbass and luthansk separist region before siding with any part. They were using white phosphorus on those people which is ethnic cleansing and thier language which is same as Russia wasn't recognized.

I'm neutral on this conflict...let there be Peace.

Drenimarcus:
Russia just deployed another batch of Chechnyans. DPR just took ugledar.

Valkrie:
With all these Kiev would or should have fall or been captured since last week...!! Don't understand again...!!

Putin's army are weak. That's why.

Most overrated military in the world. This Ukraine conflict was a real exposure of the rag tag the Russian military is. Their only saving grace is air superiority.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0QBfLXgtMU

Horus:
Dead Ukrainians and Russian soldiers everywhere

Putin sent them to their death in Ukraine
Poor soldiers.