Nope. If you listened to Putin’s declaration of the “not a war, but a limited Special Military Operation”, then look at Lukashenko’s open filming of the theater strategic map, then the VDV assault on Hostomel airport, and the armored columns that were headed to Kiev, it’s clear Putin was attempting Russia’s version of shock & awe with a swift victory in-sight to seize Kiev.
He also coordinated through the Obama people in Biden’s WH staff to make sure Biden sent a plane to extract Zelensky so there would be no leader in Kiev to mount opposition and negotiate for any assistance from Western countries.
1. Lukashenko failed him on Operational Security on a strategic scale.
2. VDV failed to seize Hostomel and were repelled by Ukrainian national guard locals after the original Ukrainian Army units were pushed out of the airport during the initial attack.
3. The armored columns ran out of gas and food on their way down to Kiev, and were attrited with Trump’s Javelin shipments, legacy Ukrainian ATGMs, and drones.
4. Biden failed to convince Zelensky to board the plane, and Zelensky instead said the famous words, “I don’t need a ride, I need ammo."
5. The Europeans navel-gazed and sweat for a while until finally sending old FMS stock to support Ukraine after Russia failed to seize Kiev and it looked like it was going to be more drawn-out than expected. You can track every promise and most deliveries via a
number of sites dedicated to documenting FMS and
arms transfers.
Biden WH saw the political momentum in Europe and started making promises, but not delivering in any timely manner because he wasn’t supposed to facilitate the rapid humiliation of Russia, quite the opposite.
The whole argument claiming that Kiev in 3 days was from US Generals is commonly-repeated, but simply isn’t supported by the totality of the evidence. Then you see guys like Col MacGregor saying Russia is taking it easy on Ukraine because they want to win with minimal loss of life. When placed next to the claims that these are Nazis, that argument falls apart very quickly.
The obvious truth is Russia doesn’t have the combat power or military competence to seize key strategic objectives in a neighboring country, even after making preparations for this that date back decades, even centuries.