by Bernhard at Moon of Alabama
As the war in Ukraine passes the half year mark lots of media produce their conclusions about the beginning of the war. But when looked at in detail these are most superficial write ups of what people assume Russia’s plans at the start of the war were and how those assumed plans fit with the presumed reality.
The Washington Post has a long ‘exclusive’ piece headlined:
Battle for Kyiv: Ukrainian valor, Russian blunders combined to save the capital
It first describes the immediate start of the war and then states a false assumption:
The question everyone faced at that moment, [Ukrainian Interior Minister Denis] Monastyrsky said, was: “How far can the enemy go with that enormous fist?”If the Russians could seize the seat of power in Ukraine, or at least cause the government to flee in panic, the defense of the country would quickly unravel. Moscow could install a puppet government.
That was the Kremlin’s plan.
I don’t know why the authors think they know what the Kremlin’s plan was. I am certain that the described one is not what Russia intended to strive for.
A piece in Newsweek makes similar assertions:
How Putin Botched the Ukraine War and Put Russia’s Military Might at Risk
Ukrainian defenders have indeed been ferociously determined, while Russian troops have had to contend with bad battlefield leaders, inferior weapons and an unworkable supply chain. They’ve also been hobbled by Putin himself. He misread the world situation and personally ordered a disastrous invasion, looking to overthrow the government in Kyiv. He directed a botched effort to take Donbas, depleting the Russian armed forces in the process.
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“Putin, like every other dictator we’ve known in the modern era, thinks he knows better, more than his own military, and more than any experts,” one senior intelligence official who works on Russia (and requested anonymity to speak frankly) tells Newsweek.
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The February invasion was designed to overthrow Volodymyr Zelensky and take over the entire country, and Russia deployed tens of thousands of troops in Belarus to Ukraine’s north, threatening Kyiv.Given Russia’s overwhelming numerical superiority, Putin expected the government in Kyiv to fall in as little as 72 hours.
There is no evidence that any of those assertions are true.
At the beginning of the year Russia faced a problem…
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