Why did Putin think he could win in Ukraine in just 3 days?
from Quora
Why wouldn’t he think this? Putin had a track record of getting what he wanted. When he went into Crimea in 2014, Europe condemned it, inflicted some symbolic sanctions, and called it a day. Crimea fell almost without a fight.
No one did anything other than utter empty words when he instigated a war in Eastern Ukraine. Indeed, Germany increased its dependency on Russian oil and gas between 2014 and 2022.
Prior to his full-scale invasion, EU leaders gave speeches about the “right side of history” and walked back even some of those condemnations when Putin used the threat of cutting off oil and gas to certain nations.
At least on paper, Ukraine’s military should have been crushed.
We’d assumed Russia’s military was as powerful as it appeared on paper. At the time, I listened to numerous fanboys claiming that Russia’s ground forces were even stronger than that of the United States because they weren’t “woke.” Our missile defenses were futile against their “unstoppable” hypersonic weapons.
I saw their jaws drop when they realized Putin was serious about his invasion plans. Most expected the conventional phase to be over in a few weeks, with Kiev falling within a few days.
Despite Russia’s supply problems and their inability to achieve air superiority, however, it was closer in those first two weeks than we want to admit. Zelenskyy was given numerous offers of shelter in anticipation of him fleeing Kiev, but he said: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”
Morale plays a significant role in warfare, and soldiers will fight harder for a leader who stays than one who flees. Unlike what Putin anticipated, the Ukrainians chose to fight when almost no one thought they had a hope in hell of standing against the Russian onslaught.
The question is whether Russia’s intelligence miscalculated, or if they had accurate information, but weren’t willing to tell Putin the truth. Either is plausible, since dictators don’t like to hear bad news.
Instead, the conflict’s turned into a long, brutal war of attrition that’s burned through much of Russia’s equipment stockpiles, and over the last month, Ukraine’s even managed to take back a few pieces of territory.
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