"Russia can still crush Ukraine in a full-scale conventional conflict, and that will remain the case for the foreseeable future, but it will no longer be the happy cruise to the Dnepr that it would have been two years earlier." - @powerfultakes, 2018. unz.com
When I started paying attention in Dec 2021 and called 22/2/22, I actually got more bullish on Russia on account of the very fact that the invasion was going to happen (surely the people tasked with fighting the war would have a better idea of power ratios than a blogger 🙃) +
+ Ukrainian propaganda like the children practicing with wooden toy guns, rainbow stuff marketed at Westiudsm etc made me think "small dog syndrome" (bark hard to scare off) + evidently growing panic in Kiev, signs elites were fleeing, etc.
Needless to say, I also assumed a range of really basic things like non-stolen comms equipment, normal tires, etc.; air superiority; artillery dominance both quantitative and qualitative appreciation of need for manpower to occupy territory; etc.
Now if this basic stuff had been taken care of there really would have been a cruise to the Dnieper, not a happy one as I said even in 2018, but a cruise nonetheless, with perhaps Dnepropetrovsk serving as the Mariupol/Stalingrad of the war. But it is what it is.
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