Comment by eszed
2 days ago
Add to all of that: this started as a war of conquest. Putin seems to have believed that Russian forces would quickly take Kiev, depose the government, and install a client regime in its place. You don't want to destroy property you think you'll shortly own, so there would have been no point stocking up enough munitions to do so.
The airport raid by SF on the first day of the war arguably came close to success.
This whole thing was a war of ‘yes men’ telling the big bad what he wanted to hear, even though it was insane.
Also Iran.
Absolutely. On the other hand, Russia's previous conquests / adventures (Chechnya; Georgia, 2008; Ukraine, 2014) were shrugged at by the west. It's wasn't insane to expect that taking over the rest of Ukraine, if quickly successful, would have been treated likewise. I'm cynical enough to think it probably would have been.
The "yes men" told Putin the military was able to do it. Probably they even thought it was, because everyone below them - right down to the individual soldiers selling off their fuel and ammunition - said everything was a-ok.
Even so, the initial invasion was a near-run thing.