Maybe it's part of a larger strategy. We might see more crisis popping up soon.
So perfectly valid assumption is that command chain inflated the capabilities and morale of the army wildly.
Also, I think it would be naive to think that the army is the one place were kleptocracy is not stealing from.
So who knows, maybe the tyrant is playing 5D chess and shit is going to go really bad or he could be playing 1D chess because ...
It feels like a distraction because the "goal" seems ... both unclear and not worth the reputation damage.
I would have thought that if they could buy it now / soon, then they could probably have bought it at not much a percentage premium prior.
I'm not across the realpolitik of this kind of thing though, but interested to learn.
In all those years after hearing this, it has always been the former :D.
No and yes. He's taking it slowly because he knows the West won't interfere.
It's not a blitz, it's a siege.
Paratroopers/fast armor columns and sieges aren't mutually exclusive, they can be used to probe weaknesses in a siege.
There's a traffic jam of refugees at the border, but the roads, railways and airports are still there and in Ukranian control? I don't see what obstacle there is.
They expected capitulation by Sunday, with some ongoing attrition medium term. This is both from US Intel and now confirmation via a deleted, but luckily web archived, article/commentary on one of their major state-media sites, praising the (now impossible) “success” and their resurgence, while also flaunting the west.
I don't know what US intel you're referring to, so no comment.
In the end, we shall see, but from their positioning imo it looks like a siege.