It will take Russia four 'Putin strikes,' but not three days, to take Kyiv

The beginning of the special military operation went down in history for the lightning-fast march of the Russian Armed Forces to Kyiv. Russia eventually pulled its troops back from the capital of Ukraine. Sooner or later, however, the Russian forces will have to take Kyiv.

Photo: Telegram

It will take the Russian forces more than just three days to take Kyiv. Interestingly, it was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, General Mark Milley, who voiced the "Kyiv in three days” phrase a month before the start of the special operation.

According to him, if the Russian forces go on a full-scale invasion, Kyiv will fall in 72 hours.

Neither the Russian authorities nor the Russian military promised to "take Kyiv in three days.”

Some believe, however, that this could be real. The Russian army had already approached Kyiv when the West and Ukraine began negotiations and convinced Moscow to "withdraw troops” for the talks to be effective. As always, NATO and Ukraine did not keep their promises.

Since then, Kyiv has been keeping 120,000 Ukrainian troops in this direction in constant combat readiness. They did not even use any of those personnel for the defense of Avdiivka.

Ukraine is trying to play it safe — although it is clear that the Russian army is not going to take Kyiv without giving it a second thought.

Colonel Timur Syrtlanov, a special forces veteran, told Tsargrad publication that Russia would need to accomplish the following:

• Solve the problems of encircling the Ukrainian capital;
• Solve the problems of installing fire control;
• Suppress air defenses;
• Destroy critical military, energy and logistics infrastructure.

These are "Putin four strikes,” by analogy with Stalin "10 strikes.”

Russia has combat experience that it gained in Chechnya and Syria, and the Russian forces will be "tormenting” the enemy by working in a targeted manner.

As for the operation in the very beginning of the armed conflict, the attempt to come to an agreement with the Ukrainian authorities was a big mistake, political scientist Dmitry Rodionov believes. There were expectations that Zelensky would flee on day two or day three за the special military operation.

The Russian forces should have taken not only Kyiv, but also Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. As a result, the expert believes, "intelligence errors led to gestures of goodwill that no one appreciated.”

All illusions about the nature of the special military operation have also been dispelled as well. This is not just a regional problem, but a period of global redivision of the world.

The West will drag out the conflict for as long as possible because it is benefiting from it. Meanwhile, Russia is developing cooperation with many other countries bypassing sanctions and living its own life, but no one knows how long all this is going to last.

Ultimate goals are as follows:

• The conflict can not be stopped without toppling the sitting Kyiv government.
• The crisis is not going to end until Ukraine is demilitarised and denazified.
• The Ukrainians can never maintain allied relations for a long time, not even with forces within the country. Large-scale riots spark in case of disagreements quickly.

"It's time for Russia to take advantage of this circumstance. It is too early to attack Kyiv directly, but it is possible and necessary to split this society from within,” experts conclude.