While the Russian invasion of Ukraine has not been defeated by any stretch of the imagination, it certainly does not seem to have gone according to plan. It looks like the Russians thought that this would be a cakewalk… either an easy military victory, or the Ukrainians would welcome them in. Instead, Russian forces *seem* to be catching hell from every quarter. At least from what’s been reported, it looks a bit embarrassing for Vlad.
I’ve seen a lot of vids of Ukrainians smack-talking the Russians, proud of their apparent victories, confident in the future. But Russia has so far used relatively minimal force. So is that Russia’s next step? if this wave of the invasion flops, will Russia step it up? Carpet bomb the cities into gravel, send wave after wave of soldiers who are under orders to *not* play nice with the Ukrainian citizens? Odin forbid, nuke the join? Because it *really* doesn’t seem likely that Putin will just accept the failure and go home.