Chechnya had less than 2 Million people and is smaller than our smallest state, Rhode Island. Grozny was about the size of Providence, RI. Even Mariupol is twice the size of Grozny. And Russia LOST the first Chechen War. Ukraine is 35X the area and over 20 times the population.
Russia has expended far more effort, troops, armor, artillery, bombs and missiles in Ukraine than they did in Chechnya, and have inflicted far more damage. Pushing the 2nd Chechen War as some proof that Russia is "holding back" and they could have made all Ukraine look like Grozny is ridiculous.
By Friday Ukraine will have a lot of those Nato
weapons being sent to them.
So I would expect a vast improvement in the
offensive by Ukraine. They were running out of
ammo. Now they will have more tanks a lot more
155mm artillery. More Javelins, Nlaws, stingers,
switchblade and other drones.
Now if a couple dozen SU jet fighters get to be
flown into service Russian navy will be in trouble.
Right now the Russian tanks are sitting ducks
with all the new anti tank weapons.