Comment by nl

Oh I agree that "know your enemy" is good advice!

But an alternative commentary with the same facts would have been something like "Russia knew there was wide Western support for Ukraine but thought they would overrun the country before Western nations would be able to provide practical support. They dramatically miscalculated and now are trying to deter Western countries by slowly increasing actions."

This was basically what @jwr said that kicked off this subthread:

> It's a typical Russian strategy: gradually increase the intensity of operations, while pretending you have nothing to do with it.