On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine with a small force of around 142,000 troops. Not enough to conquer Ukraine, the invading force was sufficient to persuade Ukraine to the negotiating table. Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that was the original goal of the military operation: “[t]he troops were…
Wasn’t the original goal to remove the “Nazi regime” as stated by putini. Also that force was bolstered by a relentless air campaign still going on
No the original goal, as stated by Putin, was to disrupt NATO activities on the Eastern border that were indistinguishable from deploying nuclear capabilities that allowed the USA to continue pursuing its dream of a nuclear first strike.
The original invasion of Russian troops was quite limited, and they didn’t have a large Airforce cover. At that time, Ukraine would have had Air Defence active.
Correct, initially the russian forces only numbered a bit over 140.000 men. Not even enough to take Kiev by force.
The initial goal was to end the ethnic cleansing in Donbas(by 22, one million people had fled to Russia), this of course means destroying Ukranian military capabilities involved in that. The stated cassus belli was resposibility to protect, referencing the NATO campaign against Serbia to seperate Kosovo from it. Back then (when the West was bombing Serbia) Russia stated that this would serve as bad precedent case.