Thread by @IlyaMatveev_

Mikhail Khodorenok, a retired colonel with the Russian general staff currently working as an analyst, writing *three weeks before the war*:

1. No one in Ukraine will happily greet Russian troops in case of the invasion. [An obvious one, but okay]

nvo.ng.ru/nvo/2022-02-03…

2. Russia has no capability to destroy the Ukrainian military and thus end the war with one missile attack. It just doesn't work that way.

3. The war will not end quickly because of Russia's air supremacy. Russia lost in Afghanistan and Chechnya despite them having zero planes. And Ukraine does have an air force and air defense.

4. The Ukrainian forces have undergone massive reforms since 2014 and are very capable. The West will supply them with weapons on the scale of a new land-lease program.

5. The resistance to the invasion will be particularly successful in big cities, where smaller defending force has multiple advantages.

6. Even if significant territories are occupied, the guerrilla resistance will be fierce. The Soviet forces have been fighting nationalist guerrillas in Western Ukraine for more than 10 years after the end of the second world war.

7. The bottom line: there will be no blitzkrieg and those who say otherwise will be deeply embarrassed.

So, this is 7 out of 7 for Khodorenok. I'm not a military expert, but most of these points are basic common sense. If only the Kremlin could maintain a minimal connection with reality...