Putin beordrar styrkor att gå in i Ukraina - INVASION NU (2022-02-24)

#Lukashenko on February, the 6th: If there would be war with #Ukraine, we would take it in 3-4 days!

Reports emerged Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin said he could take control of Ukraine’s capital city in as little as two weeks, a remark that escalated already pitched tensions between Russia and the West in the lead-up to NATO’s summit in Wales.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion on February 24, he expected a swift and decisive victory, seeming to believe his own propaganda about the strength of his armed forces and people's willigness to fight for a country, Ukraine, that he has defined as an integral part of his own.

Within minutes of his televised war declaration, explosions were reported across Ukraine — including in the capital city, Kyiv, home to nearly 3 million people.

CIA Director Bill Burns told lawmakers last week that Putin's strategy for the war was centered on "seizing Kyiv within the first two days of the campaign." US intelligence likewise assessed that the city could fall soon after the invasion.

Here's some advice for nations who don't want Russian troops as uninvited guests: Guard your airport.

That's the recommendation from two American defense experts who point to a pattern in Russian operations over the last 50 years: when the Kremlin wants to occupy another nation, it goes for the airport.

Russia's failed attempt to seize Kyiv's Hostomel airport at the start of the 2022 Ukraine invasion was part of a "well-established playbook," Kevin Stringer and Heather Gregg wrote in an essay for West Point's Modern War Institute. Moscow sent commandos and paratroopers to seize airports in Prague in 1968, Kabul in 1979 and Sevastopol in 2014, to facilitate an advance by ground troops invading across the border.

"An appreciation of this playbook is key for states who might find themselves in the crosshairs of future Russian aggression," the essay warned. The strategy can work with blistering speed as elite assault troops seize the airport to create an aerial beachhead. Air transports can then fly in reinforcements to expand the airhead, while waiting to link up with armored columns pouring across the border.