I’ll keep in mind what President Trump is saying right now. The total opposite of your propaganda. Move on.
From the Russian actions on day one it is clear that they were attempting a coup de main against what they thought would be lightly defending Ukrainian forces and that yes, they thought it would be over in a day or two. That they were not able to accomplish this does not mean that they can not win with a more prolonged conventional campaign, but they clearly did not achieve the quick victory that they had anticipated.
Based by inference on the otherwise absurd operations of the first three days, and possibly those of the first week and a half or so.
The annihilation of an airborne regiment wasted in fruitless attempts to, without hope of effective relief, to take two airfields near Kiev. Part of this involved flying in to these airfields in AN-26 transports, meaning to land and unload or drop paras. In the face of functioning liw level SAM systems. That coup de main could only have worked against no resistance.
And then there were all these battalion sized columns that just took road trips down country roads from all directions, with no follow-up forces to secure logistics or rear security. Many were ambushed or cut off. Same reasons above, all this could only have worked against no resistance.
“ Maybe the plan all along was to move slowly and cautiously to avoid civilian casualties”
For the first several days, Russian forces scrupulously avoided civilian targets. By the end of the first week they had begun systematically striking civilian areas of Kharkiv with barrages of Grad rockets (area effect weapons), as well as the first use of TOS-1 thermobaric rocket barrages against civilian neighborhoods.
The targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure like water, heat, electricity, hospitals and communications has steadily increased. It is now the main effort of Russian forces in the Ukraine, producing the biggest refugee movement in Europe since WWII. This same approach of targeting civilians has characterized every Russian conflict that has occurred under Putin’s reign - Chechnya, Syria, Georgia (somewhat less so in the less urban parts of Georgia that Russia seized there, but perhaps because they were just more difficult to target, being more spread out).
It is no accident. It is Putin’s way of making war, it was the Russian way of war before Putin took over. They are treating Ukrainian cities the same as they treated Grozny, Aleppo and Homs.
” Maybe the plan all along was to move slowly and cautiously to avoid civilian casualties”
ROTFLMAO!