The US had many of the same expectations about victory in the second Iraq war.

And Ukraine... I've been unable to find any meaningful and direct quote from Russian military/political leaders stating they expected to immediately capture the city, but you can find plentiful US sources predicting exactly that:

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"The sources said that the initial US assessment from before the invasion – which anticipated that the Ukrainian capital would be overrun within one to four days of a Russian attack – remains the current expectation." [1]

"Milley (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) told lawmakers during closed-door briefings on Feb. 2 and 3 that a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine could result in the fall of Kyiv within 72-hours, and could come at a cost of 15,000 Ukrainian troop deaths and 4,000 Russian troop deaths." [2]

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It seems that the narrative largely swapped to this all being Putin's plan once it didn't work as out like our military/intelligence agencies expected.

[1] - https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/25/politics/kyiv-russia-ukra...

[2] - https://www.foxnews.com/us/gen-milley-says-kyiv-could-fall-w...

Putin didn't say it, but then he said he's not planning any invasion anyways. Here you can see various Russian tv personalities, we well as Lukasgenko, saying just that: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SuR7axsnUjw

And here is Sharij, a pro Russian journalist from Ukraine that's extremely popular, mocking all the reports of destruction of Russian forces on the first day and believing all the Russian lies, such as having destroyed all the anti aircraft systems of Ukraine: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7gO6vuI2-BQ

You must also understand that in Russian culture it was common to mock Ukrainians as dumb farmer hicks, while thinking of themselves as highly technologically advanced.

> You must also understand that in Russian culture it was common to mock Ukrainians as dumb farmer hicks, while thinking of themselves as highly technologically advanced.

Where did you get this info from? My experience growing up in USSR (in areas that are now Russia and Ukraine) was totally different. Ukraine had a reputation (well deserved) as a major tech hub. Most of Soviet space industry (military for one) was there -- rockets, missiles, rocket engines, electronics. Kiev University was one of the major place of learning rivaling MGU (Moscow State University). People from all over the Soviet Union were fighting nail and tooth to be allowed to move and live in Kiev. Yes, there were folk-jokes (anekdoty) about Ukrainians like about anybody else. This does not reflect in any form upon the fact that Ukraine was very highly developed republic within USSR. 3 out of 7 leader of USSR were Ukrainians (Khrushchev - 8 years, Brezhnev - 18 years in power, Chernenko - 2 years). Ukraine was always a force to recon with.

But the U.S. did win quickly in the second Iraq War. It rapidly crushed the Iraqi armed forces on all fronts and in all combat scenarios and quickly occupied the entire country with minimal military losses. The post-invasion/occupation insurgency was a different story, partly caused by massive U.S. administrative blunders, but the initial invasion/war was nothing like the current Ukraine-Russia conflict, or the 1940 Winter War with Finland.

The Party Secretary of Leningrad even commissioned Dmitri Shostakovich to compose celebratory music for the occasion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suite_on_Finnish_Themes

It was set aside but was later rediscovered and was first performed in 2001 by a Finnish orchestra.

Except that the Finnish Winter War was eventually a defeat for the Finns, due to the overwhelming force of the Red Army despite its horrendous losses. Finland in fact lost more from the war than it would have lost had it simply accepted Stalin's original territorial demands. I still defend their fighting spirit, but it's a bad moral example for the current war, because one hopes the Russians don't eventually win.

Sure, just the loss of life in that war was severe for a small country.

I am, however, only talking about the Russian assumption of the ease of victory, where reality ended up being very different (7,000-9,000 Russian soldiers dead in a week in that one battle), and the evidence of it in the form of the musical instruments etc for the parade.