[Forgeties79]

> and Ukrainians would welcome Russian troops as liberators while Zelensky's government would fold immediately.

It is wild how many conflicts involve this blunder. I can’t think of a single major example where the advisors were right. It’s such a great example of believing your own propaganda and/or being too afraid to actually look under the hood of your claims to your leader.

Autocracy tends to breed lying yes men near the top I suppose.

[matusp]

There are many ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine that really welcomed the Russian army. The problem is that the rest of the country is not that happy about this.

[Forgeties79]

This has always been overblown and clearly that “many” was an insignificantly small portion of the population once the rubber met the road. Just because you have a favorable opinion of the Russian government doesn’t mean you’re going to suddenly start singing the anthem when their tanks cross the border as they bomb you/your friends (who according to Putin are all probably Nazis) out of nowhere.

So many left after all this so Ukraine’s sympathetic-to-Russia population will no longer be significant by any metric. Putin knows this. He’s lost Ukraine forever if he doesn’t make them surrender.