We keep hearing this assertion. Where is the evidence?

Based on the Russian military tactics that were employed during the first couple days of the war. You don't run and gun into a country where you're expecting much resistance. There's also the logistical self-owns by the Russians where, by many accounts, they only had enough gas and food for at most a week but it's been reported only 3 days worth.

The evidence is in the fact that no one supplied them with any aid until they went "oh shit, Ukraine is still standing," 48 hours later.

Russia prepared (and accidentally published) a press release for 3 days after the invasion, congratulating themselves on their victory.

Any source?

I saw it on a major German site, and you can find many links pointing to it. Just the first link from Google (I searched for "Russia prepared (and accidentally published) a press release"):

https://news.yahoo.com/russian-state-news-accidentally-publi...

Incidentally, the contents of that press release is what really shocked me much more than the invasion itself. It showed their twisted state of mind and that it wasn't about Ukraine, that they see themselves in some righteous crusade against the evil West. EDIT: The link I found is not the original, but others have posted other links. What I saw was a link from Der Spiegel (www.spiegel.de) when this was fresh news and it was just an absurd statement all around. The Twitter link that was posted shows it best.

That article was when it all changed for me. It showed to me that this was not the end from Putin's PoV, but just the beginning of some kind of holy struggle. That article really brought it home to me that we needed to up our defense spending ASAP. Because the Russian leadership had gone insane. Some goals in Ukraine I could have logically understood as Russian interest - but the whole "we against the West" thing was just madness.

I mean, the West was pretty happy financing and equipping Russia and China, helping both to modernize for decades. The West also kept pretty quiet any time Russia did some "special operation". Even the invasion of Georgia did not have any great consequences and was soon forgotten. It appeared to me that the West was quite okay with Russia gaining back some power - to take care of issues like militant Islam in the region. I did not see any sign that a weak Russia was in the Western interest. If there were individuals with a different opinion, who cares, the West has a huge amount of different voices unlike the authoritarian centralized China and Russia. If one looked at what happened it was a huge empowering of both China and Russia by the West, not a weakening. George W. Bush even recommended Ukraine to not go independent (Kiev Chicken speech), the USSR falling apart was all the USSR itself. Did the West like having to scramble to ensure the safety of nuclear tech in the years of Russian chaos? Surely not!

How can China and Russia possibly claim/think that the West is out to suppress them? Modernization in both countries would have been impossible or taken a century without all the very active help from the West. So seeing yourself in some victim role is just ridiculous.

I have some connections to Russia, having visited quite a few times and even done a Russian(!) language course (to fresh up, I already spoke a bit) in Odessa for a few months. I also know people who have businesses in Russia and help foreign businesses to invest there. So I saw and see first hand a bit of the great help Russia got in all areas of business and tech.

How anyone (Russian leadership) can ignore all of that and think themselves into a corner where they think they have to take military action to thwart the evil West? It's just so stupid! Which means there is little chance for diplomacy - the whole thing was not created by reason, so it's hard to use reason to get out of it.

That's because you only see part of the picture, because you're a Westerner.

You don't see how, under the guise of "anti-corruption fight", most of the local businessmen (part of them also politicians) would get sent to jail and their businesses acquired on the cheap. That would be ok, of course, if the place of said corrupt local businessmen would be taken by other, non-corrupt, local businessmen, i.e. non-corrupt Russians taking the businesses of corrupt Russians and making them better.

Unfortunately that's not what happens, the place of those corrupt businessmen is taken by Western companies and multi-nationals that are not corrupt on paper because they do not posses personhood (at least not when it comes to doing bad stuff), but which are even more evil because bigger (look at Nestle, headquartered on the shores of the idyllic Lake Leman, no-one is bombing that place any time soon).

Now, you could say: "better have evil Western corporations take the place of corrupt Russian businessmen in Russia!" but the reality is that not everyone thinks like that and that's what this ideological conflict is mostly about.

What does that have to do with the West? That is a Russian problem! Since when do Western governments govern Russia? At no point were laws in Russia made and enforced by anyone but the Russian government. And I did not know the oligarchs were Westerners? Yes there was a lot of stealing and shady practices. Which is how you got the oligarchs. Which are Russian.

This is a conflict Russia is having against the West via Ukraine, they're fighting against the Westernisation of Ukraine, they've said as much.

Thank you for making it clear, exactly what I wrote. Absurdity!

> fighting against the Westernisation of Ukraine

What business is it of Russia to dictate what other countries do? Insanity!

In your first comment you spoke about Russia, now that I responded you moved on to Ukraine and it makes no sense either.

Last time I checked, when I was in Ukraine, they want to be westernized.

We can go back to your previous comment, if Russia does not want it, you can do whatever within your borders. Nobody complained, as I mentioned, the West let Russia do whatever with little to no repercussions. Russia is not a victim, it is an aggressor, without any logical reason.

> Last time I checked, when I was in Ukraine, they want to be westernized.

Doesn't matter what they want it the guy with bigger weapons close to them has different opinions, that's how international relations work, that's how wars start, that's why we're in here. It's nothing "irrational" about it, as in we've been doing this for millennia.

On a more general point, I can see your point, you're most probably an idealist [1], I for myself I'm a realist, I personally think that realism is closer to how things actually work when it comes to international relations.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism_in_international_rela...

Thank you for coming clear about Russian aggression Which is why we need to up our defense spending, as I said. In your last comment you drop all pretenses. "We can do whatever we want, no arguments necessary".

I'm not sure what you are proud of though, you forced many neutrals or even friends - like me - into an antagonistic position.

> On a more general point, I can see your point, you're most probably an idealist [1], I for myself I'm a realist, I personally think that realism is closer to how things actually work when it comes to international relations.

You start with an attempt of arguments, laudable, but when you find they are easily defeated you jump to in the context meaningless generalities that don't even fit the previous comments in any way.

.

However, your comments do show one thing. There is little room for optimism that sanity and arguments are going to win anything here. I heard even on a German city's market square a German woman selling sausages argue about poor, poor Putin and how the West mistreated him so that he had no choice now but to fight back.

Or just read the comments under a LinkedIn post of former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who is a friend of Putin. There were quite a few comments there urging Schröder to continue to support Putin, and a lot of insane stuff in support of Putin and against the West. No idea if it was from real Germans, but there is no reason to suspect "bots", there really are plenty of people supporting Putin.

Read the comments and despair: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gerhard-schroeder_der-krieg-u...

> Dear Mr. Schröder, I think you being a close friend of Putin you understand that sometimes a man has got to do what a man got to do. I believe in putin and his insight on the security of Europe as a whole.

Etc etc... not all comments are like this, but many (many are in German) - not least of which are the comments by the Ex-Chancellor himself.

I’m Romanian myself, not Russian, sitting at the middle (ideologically and geographically) of all this madness. This being HN I was trying to “debug” the whole situation as an arm-chair geostrategist, and that entailed, imo, making sense of what drives one side of the conflict, the Russians.

As I said, I don’t think they’re irrational, very, very few international conflicts are irrational on the face of it, nobody goes to war because “they felt like it” or because it “was written in the stars”, that would be trully irrational. I do think though that part of the reason Russia started this war is because they want to fight a war against some aspects of Westernization. They most certainly like Western cars and Western-designed iPhones but it looks like they don’t like certain Western ideologies, like the type of democracy that the West now professes. Again, I don’t see anything irrational in all this.

The irrational part is mixing Puylo, who might be rationally against "the West" for he likes to rule and true democracy does not allow that, and everyone else, who actually needs working courts and laws, but are for the war based on the pretenses Puylo put out. Now those are highly irrational, and they are quite possibly the majority there.

But Russia went to war because Putin did it on a whim. Likely the last wish of a dying man. They could have gone along just fine without attacking Ukraine. It is a completely irrational move on their part.

Yeah but Ukraine isn't Russia and it looks like Russia is finding out that they aren't just going to roll over for them.

Nice attempt at false equivocation and outright propaganda. We won't fall for it. If you like Russia so much, stay in Russia and don't attack countries that don't want to be under your control.

You can see my comments from further down to see that I’m not Russian and, as it happens, I don’t live in Russia. I do live though in country bordering Ukraine, I’ve just parked my car 5 minutes ago behind a car with an Ukraine plate (refugees, most probably), right at this moment me, my SO and a couple who are very close friends seriously discuss on WhatsApp what would be the best strategy in case of the worst (everyone bar me is for leaving the country, I still hope it won’t get to that), all this to remind you that we’re on HN, a programmers’ website, not a propaganda one, where we try to make sense of the world around us, no matter if it’s a nuclear power that neighbors you or nasty computer bugs that you dream about at night.

Here’s a long thread: https://twitter.com/Tom_deWaal/status/1498310064117059585?s=...

Plenty of that, what news sources do you respect enough for me to link to?

The “special military operation” isnt over and even Russia is attempting a limited ceasefire to help humanitarian efforts, for the third time, which means its not over due to Ukrainians resisting with some success

That was the general idea held by some people who were following the conflict online, I knew I was one of them, turns out I (and the people thinking like me) was/were wrong.

I first thought this would play out like Czechoslovakia 1968, with the Soviet/Warsaw Pact paratroopers taking one of the big airports close to the capital, part of the local Army turning sides and the regime collapsing. Under that scenario everything would effectively have been over in 3 days, give or take.

As further proof that that was the Russians' initial tactic is that they only started bombing civilian assets about 5 days in, when it had become clear to them that the initial plan had failed.

Their tactics. Unless their command is retarded which I don’t think they are. But their tactics imply a super fast surrender of Ukraine and the resignation/arrest/death of Ukrainian leadership.

not really an answer but for one Russian military also seems to have expected and even planned for that (e.g. sending recon units first)

The assertion that Russia expected Ukraine to fall in 1-3 days seems like propaganda. In order for Ukraine to stand a chance, it needs allies and reinforcement from the West.

No rational actor throws its weight behind an entity doomed to failure. So, we need a narrative that Ukraine is not doomed to failure despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The most optimistic thing we can say is that the people have fought valiantly and Russia did not sweep across the nation at historically unprecedented speed. By claiming that Putin's inner circle expected to win the war in 1-3 days, we can claim that Ukraine is actually winning. And if Ukraine is winning, then everybody who can sanction Russia in any way should do it right now to accelerate Ukraine's now inevitable victory.

In some sense, it is a necessary narrative. If Ukraine doesn't get global support it will fall. Recasting them as the inevitable victor, therefore can be seen as an attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And it might work (hopefully!)

Society doesn't demand triple-confirmation proof to retell stories that comport with our ideology. This case has some weak concrete evidence in its favor, but that's not the _point_. This is an active war, which means that most of the public information coming from authoritative sources is closely managed to suit the authority's goals.

The supermajority of power in the West wants Putin's conquest to fail. So the narratives we hear will be angled in whatever way to maximize the possibility of that outcome.

It is absolutely propaganda. People forget it took the US 3 weeks just to take Baghdad. The idea that Russia thought it would take 3 days to take Kyiv is preposterous.

Baghdad had a warlord dictator for a leader, and a military that had been in a war with Iran and Kuwait. The Ukraine had a former comedian as a president; and their military had been unable to do anything about Russia's invasion of the Crimea. The scenario where a "shock and awe" invasion along 4 fronts causes the president to flee for his life as Russia waltzes into Kyiv largely unopposed to puts in a new government was certainly in the realm of possibilities.

Realm of possibilities – of course. High enough probability that Putin went all-in on it? I'm skeptical.

Yet all evidence suggests Russia expected the Ukrainian army to surrender quickly. They even prepared a congratulatory release for 3 days after the invasion.

https://news.yahoo.com/russian-state-news-accidentally-publi...

As stated in the original post, we are in active war. Any information coming from state run media should be looked at with extreme skepticism.

Was this published on accident? Or was it intentional? There is no way to know for certain.

Think about this piece of evidence as a data point, but one that is nowhere near damning proof.

Well, it was very embarrassing to take a victory lap with the war getting bogged down, and revealed motivations for the war that contradicted Putin’s statements, and aligned with the “blitzkrieg” analysis of Russia’s early failures.

So, true, it’s not proof, but Occam’s Razor comes into play here.

The three day war idea is the only rational basis for the invasion: 1. Decapitate the government and military 2. Broadcast a message of surrender 3. Install a puppet government and occupation control of cities

That's the only way 200k soldiers can control a nation of 40 million who are united against invaders and united behind a democratically elected government.

Even if half of the first objective can be attained in a few weeks, it will not lead to the following necessary objectives being met. Putin has no viable plan.

Which, if you are making an analogy to Iraq, is somewhat similar: The US had no viable plan to stop patrols being ambushed using the same tactics on the same roads week after week.

I'm not ruling out that Putin hoped for a fast capitulation by Ukraine. It does seem that he attempted to produce exactly that.

I find it harder to believe that he went all-in betting on that gambit.

It looks stupid in hindsight. But we all found out that the weapons meant to stop a mechanized invasion of Western Europe do in fact work.

> People forget it took the US 3 weeks just to take Baghdad.

The Russians were getting high on their own supply and believed their own propaganda that "brotherly" Ukrainians and the ethnic Russians would surrender immediately.

They didn't think they would win in a few days, they thought there would be nothing but token opposition.

No, it's because defense analysts widely expected Russia to use their capabilities much more effectively. In the leadup there were stories about things like training an effective insurgency, which is because a Russian campaign operated to a similar effectiveness of a US military (in hindsight, not accurate) would have absolutely destroyed Ukraine. Russia's logistics struggles and incompetent air force have discredited their conventional forces.

To name a few areas. Comms have been a disaster, with lots of coordination over unencrypted shortwave. Likely as a result, air support has been spotty, and EWar has been completely ignored. Air missions have been with small numbers of planes at low altitude to evade active air defense and drop dumb bombs, which means unexpected losses to stingers instead of higher-altitude flights outranging them. 2 weeks in and Ukraine C2 is largely intact, with even some operational air defense and possibly limited Tochka-U strikes. Ground logistics have been uncoordinated with heavy losses to unconventional attacks, done with unexpected effectiveness by Ukraine, and overall morale is far higher than anyone would have expected.

Obviously, information operations play a huge role. That also wasn't predetermined, in large part it's an upset by Ukraine. Who could have predicted that a Zoom call with Zelensky would convince Europe to cut Russia off from Swift when it was impossible to convincingly precommit to it?

There are also signs that Russia at least hoped to win within 1-3 days, like the day 1 VDV assault on Hostomel that ended up failing, and the domestic portrayal of a "special military operation" leaving the population unprepared for the sorts of casualties and bloody warfare that ended up happening.

Here are a couple articles:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-02-21/r...

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentar...

They absolutely thought they could surround and take down the government in Kyiv right away, probably in less than a week and they are finding out otherwise.

for example - I am.