It’s only day 3 and Ukraine is big. I imagine Plan A was to expect the Ukrainian military to surrender rapidly, and they are now gathering and mobilising for Plan B.
~It can definitely work, see for instance Nazi Germany -> Poland.~
Edit: Nevermind. I am very wrong on this. What I understood to be a "quick" victory from my vague memory of history lessons was a month. I also never considered that Poland never surrendered but _lost_ the invasion. There was no surrender.
If Putin believes he had the means to capture Kyiv within a really short time AND he believes his own propaganda that Ukrainians are idiots and cowards and drug addicts and whatever then yeah. I do see how you could logically conclude that they would surrender quickly.
But Ukraine turned out to have an extremely strong leader, raising morale to levels far beyond Russia's. Turns out the folk is nationalistic, proud and doesn't want to take shit from Russia.
So many civilians in Kyiv are joining the fight because they want to and they have to.
Is that what Putin was expecting? I don't know.
Do want to note that on Dutch television a historian stated that he believes Russia believes they will have Kyiv captured before early March, since airports near the Ukrainian border have been closed until then. So while 3 days is long for Kyiv to hold out, the reality might be they'll have to hold out for at least 2 weeks before it starts really mattering in the eyes of Putin.
> It can definitely work, see for instance Nazi Germany -> Poland.
What are you talking about? The invasion lasted several weeks and had the support of the USSR. They quite literally destroyed the Polish army. In fact, Poland never officially surrendered.
This is the weird point to me. I had zero problem understanding why Afghanistan fell as quickly as did it. And that is with seeming IC warnings that Taliban had enough clout and American's sufficiently disliked.
It is hard for me to believe Russia did not have appropriate intelligence on nation's mood as a whole. And it seems like they either did or disregarded it.
Maybe there are other considerations at play that weigh harder than the risk. Then again, if Chechnya showed anything, it is that Russia can play long occupation and 'win'.
> Then again, if Chechnya showed anything, it is that Russia can play long occupation and 'win'.
You can't compare Ukraine with Chechnya. Also Russian soldiers are much more hesitant to attack Ukrainians, the plan as I see it was to scare them to surrender, but Ukrainians weren't scared so what could follow might be a horror for humanity to behold if it continues for a long time because resentment builds up we might see some terrible atrocities of war.
I don't know what your understanding is of the invasion of Poland, but you should probably read up on it if you think it ended in an almost immediate surrender.
Why not? It's usually the lowest cost (in money, materiel and bloodshed) option for both sides, so it doesn't seem a bad first option. Of course it's unlikely to happen, so you should be ready to execute a plan B.
