Karl Spooner: "Yeah, the guy who said that was a joke.
I bet you thought the Russians said that.
"Gen. Milley says Kyiv could fall within 72 hours if Russia decides to invade Ukraine"
Fox News, February 5, 2022
dforest: "Russia was never after Kiev.
They still aren’t."
Russian HALO jump, Winter 2022:
On March 18, 2022 the UK Mirror reported:
"Putin has refused to call his invasion what it is - a war.That August, The Washington Post said US intelligence had predicted:
Instead, he only refers to it as a "special military operation" to "de-Nazify" Ukraine.
He had hoped it would last just three days."
"The attack would happen in the winter so that the hard earth would make the terrain easily passable for tanks.Now, consider that Russia's February 2022 assault on Kiev was a combined arms, air and mobile land forces operation, three to four days obviously was their original intention -- had everything gone according to Vlad the Invader's plans.
Forming a pincer around the capital, Russian troops planned to seize Kyiv in three to four days.
The Spetsnaz, their special forces, would find and remove President Volodymyr Zelensky, killing him if necessary, and install a Kremlin-friendly puppet government."
Had Russia's air-assault on Kiev's airport succeeded as intended, the war could easily have been over in a few days.
Ukraine Pres. Zelenskyy himself said it would have been over soon, had he followed some bad advice:
"Zelensky recalled. 'If we had communicated that — and that is what some people wanted, who I will not name — then I would have been losing $7 billion a month since last October, and at the moment when the Russians did attack, they would have taken us in three days. ...In December 2022, Vlad the Invader himself admitted:
Generally, our inner sense was right:
If we sow chaos among people before the invasion, the Russians will devour us.
Because during chaos, people flee the country.' "
"Putin says Ukraine ‘special military operation’ is taking longer than expected"So, Putin himself never said "three days" publicly, but the design of his February 2022 SMO was clearly intended to make quick work of a presumed hapless enemy.
BeauBo : "The joke now, is that Kursk will be taken in three days."
Ukraine's OpSec is reported as good and no reliable word has been published on Ukraine's intentions or force sizes.
Originally the Ukraine force was said to be around 2,000 and now seemingly much larger, but nobody really knows and Russia's response so far has seemed a little lackluster.