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.