[kstenerud]

"Russia can not conquer all of Ukraine, and never attempted to do so."

Russia did absolutely attempt to do exactly that. This invasion was modelled after Operation Danube, intended to:

- Cut off all major airstrips by landing planes in friendship and then unloading paratroopers to capture them.

- Quickly enter the major cities and capture the "illegitimate" government.

- Crush the pockets of resistance among the mostly pro-Russian populace.

- Install a Russia-friendly government.

- Execute the old government as a warning against other countries.

Of course, none of it went according to plan. The upper government was misinformed about their own military strength and preparedness, the supposedly already "pro-Russian" Ukrainians who would just stand by and let this happen, and the world response. Also, the Ukrainian military was forewarned, so the airstrip captures ... didn't exactly go according to plan :P

And since this was expected to take half a week tops, nobody bothered to set up proper supply lines or airforce + ground + artillery coordination. After all, why bother with all of that on a milk run?

[s1artibartfast]

You are forgetting an entire half of the country with cities and airports.

Even then, operation Danube is more akin to regime change than conquering and occupying a country, which was mersheimers point

[kstenerud]

At this point we're splitting hairs. I'm not interested in scoring points.

[s1artibartfast]

Thats fine, but it is the central part of the quote

>"In fact if you really want to wreck Russia, what you should do is encourage it to try and conquer Ukraine. Putin again is much too smart to do that."

This is true if you are talking about military occupation. obviously not true for a coup, assassination, or quick regime change.