Mr. Putin is already planning for victory. His latest so-called peace proposal — in which Russia keeps occupied territory and Ukraine is banned from joining NATO — was dismissed as propaganda by many Western leaders. But it is, in fact, the most realistic scenario for how this war will pan out.
https://archive.ph/zoQ0F
What? That was never the stated objective. The whole three days to Kiev line didn't from Russia either. Russia never wanted to destroy Ukraine as a nation, though that may very well be the functional result thanks to NATO.
Imagine trying to spin "our opponent didn't destroy our capital!" as a victory when they weren't even trying to do that.
Obviously you can't use official Russian government statements as evidence of Russia's intent, because that would be Russian propaganda. The only authoritative reputable sources for Russia's intent are privately owned US media outlets citing anonymous US state department officials.
I gotta give it to them, the whole Kiev in 3 days was a very clever bit of propaganda. They created an anchoring effect using a completely fictional scenario, and they've been measuring everything against that for the past two years. Anybody who's not been following the war closely becomes easily convinced that Russia is doing a lot worse than it actually is as a result.
This is the exact cope I've been expecting for years. I think part of the point of the narrative of Putin the Conqueror introduced back in 2022 was so that when they lost they could claim they prevented him from achieving his objectives (even though he's clearly going to get everything he said he wanted on day 1 lmao)
Did some searching, it comes from CIA director William Burns in 2022-03-08, you can see it here. It was actually 2 days.
If you go a bit further back, you have "sources" from the CIA already spouting the 2 days line a couple weeks earlier. Here's an example from the day after the start of the SMO.
It goes like this, US Intel are worried it could happen -> report it as Putin hinging his whole plan on it happening -> if it happens it's because it was a massive gamble and "unfair" in some way, if it doesn't happen it was an utter failure and Putin threw away his whole country.
A week later, business insider reports it as though Russia failed in the war and practically lost, and actually, it's Russian intelligence which is bad for wrongly predicting their victory. Which the US intel also predicted. Go figure.
Narrative created. Consent manufactured. Redditor fooled.
P.S.: is there a Ukrainian civil war megathread I could read and contribute to somewhere? It's fun to look up these little lies but it's been 2 years now and there's just too much stuff to hold on one's head.
libs push that russia wanted to destroy the ukranian identity so they can claim victory when russia doesnt do that