you're completely talking past me at someone arguing that Russia wants/ed to occupy/annex the whole of Ukraine, and it was a choice between that protracted occupation & the present war of attrition

i'm saying the Russians earnestly pursued an objective of capturing Kiev and forcing a capitulation at the early stage of the war, that they did not want a drawn-out conflict. i don't think they were interested in occupying the whole Ukraine, they'd use an occupied Kiev to dictate a cession of Crimea et-al & force them to stay out of NATO. that's a fucking 'Special Military Operation', if it'd actually worked.