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The battle that nobody believed would last so long: Putin's war at the half-year mark
Russia's Feb 24 invasion did not yield a quick victory against Ukraine. As both sides dig in for a prolonged conflict, certain questionable assumptions are at play.
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Service members of pro-Russian troops stand next to a howitzer during an exhibition of Ukrainian army hardware and weapons in Luhansk Region, Ukraine, on July 8, 2022.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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When Russian troops launched their attack on Ukraine back in February, nobody - not Russian President Vladimir Putin, not the Ukrainians and certainly not all the Western leaders and their intelligence agencies monitoring these developments - believed that the war would last more than a few days, or at most one week.
President Putin planned for a lightning operation to topple the Ukrainian government, followed by the country's rapid occupation. And Russia's military superiority was so overwhelming that this objective seemed a foregone conclusion.
