They're invading the largest country in Europe armed by a military bloc constituting 60% of world military spending. Which part of that screamed quick to you?
>Russian operational and strategic decision-making has been a bonfire of blazing incompetence
They somehow managed to achieve a body bag exchange ratio of 44:1 and an extreme busification crisis in Ukraine with a volunteer force.
It's a more impressive showing than Iraq.
>led to things breaking down into WWI-style attritional warfare.
Putin announced the strategy of attritional warfare in March 2022 after the land bridge was secured, so one could hardly argue that this wasnt the plan.
Ukraine has done a good job of playing into their hands by trying to cling on to land long past the point where it becomes defensible and getting enveloped in cauldron after cauldron.
Hence the issue where Ukrainian civilians are now more afraid of their own government's roving kidnapping gangs than living under Moscow's rule.
That part is probably going to be the real kicker in the end.