No, it's because defense analysts widely expected Russia to use their capabilities much more effectively. In the leadup there were stories about things like tra

No, it's because defense analysts widely expected Russia to use their capabilities much more effectively. In the leadup there were stories about things like training an effective insurgency, which is because a Russian campaign operated to a similar effectiveness of a US military (in hindsight, not accurate) would have absolutely destroyed Ukraine. Russia's logistics struggles and incompetent air force have discredited their conventional forces. To name a few areas. Comms have been a disaster, with lots of coordination over unencrypted shortwave. Likely as a result, air support has been spotty, and EWar has been completely ignored. Air missions have been with small numbers of planes at low altitude to evade active air defense and drop dumb bombs, which means unexpected losses to stingers instead of higher-altitude flights outranging them. 2 weeks in and Ukraine C2 is largely intact, with even some operational air defense and possibly limited Tochka-U strikes. Ground logistics have been uncoordinated with heavy losses to unconventional attacks, done with unexpected effectiveness by Ukraine, and overall morale is far higher than anyone would have expected. Obviously, information operations play a huge role. That also wasn't predetermined, in large part it's an upset by Ukraine. Who could have predicted that a Zoom call with Zelensky would convince Europe to cut Russia off from Swift when it was impossible to convincingly precommit to it? There are also signs that Russia at least hoped to win within 1-3 days, like the day 1 VDV assault on Hostomel that ended up failing, and the domestic portrayal of a "special military operation" leaving the population unprepared for the sorts of casualties and bloody warfare that ended up happening. Here are a couple articles: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-02-21/russias-shock-and-awe https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-02-21/r... https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/ukraine-through-russias-eyes/ https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentar...