And?
The Russians - according to their own reports - were under the impression they would be welcomed as liberators and would face little opposition. The whole invasion force was under 200,000 men.
No one planning a “feint” attack on Kiev would waste hundreds and hundreds of special forces troops on an airport they would do exactly nothing with.
Going 40 miles an hour it takes you 6 hours to get from the Russian border to Kiev. The Russians probably thought they would be in the city in a couple of days.
The latest successes of the Ukrainians just shows that the Russians are just poorly prepared for this war. I say that knowing full well that time may be on the side of the Russians for they have more men and resources in the long run.
“The latest successes of the Ukrainians just shows that the Russians are just poorly prepared for this war.”
I admitted that the Russians were caught completely off guard by the NATO attack, when they had been prepared for a ground-down Ukrainian attack. They screwed up.
But as to Kiev, the net effect of the 30,000 troops was to tie-down reinforcements to prevent the Ukrainians from moving against the Russians in Donbass, and it worked perfectly as far as that went. I haven’t seen any evidence yet that the Russians expected to be greeted as liberators in Kiev and I doubt that was the case, as Russia, more so than many here, fully understands the difference in the people in Kiev versus Donbass.