> I agree, and it might be the case that since they lost any element of surprise due to their moves being telegraphed by Western intelligence, it greatly undermined any speed they were hoping to make use of.

It's unclear to me how much of that time Ukraine used to prepare. If they did, they didn't telegraph it.

What I read was the Russian amphibious landing in the south was done 30-40 miles away from the target city (or kilometers, can't remember the unit). Apparently they wanted the space to get organized. However that meant the city had extra time to prepare after the actual invasion started.