> Putin said that the little green men were Russian military.

Yup, after the fact, probably when it became more feasible to deal with the internal political and bureaucratic fallout.

Hence the intense irony.

> In short that Ukraine is a mistake done by Lenin forced about by a anti Russian agenda of some kind, and that erasing the imagine imaginary line between Ukraine and Russia is necessary to return Russia to the world stage like it was it was part of the USSR.

Putin LOVES to present himself as a hobby historian, but the historical claims Russia has on Ukraine don't make any sense from a practical viewpoint, since these arguments wont add absolutely any weight to Russia trying to further their cause just about anywhere. Especially because the political history of the region is complex enough to challenge just about any claims.

Then there is the catastrophic state of the region even before 2022, before 2014 and even 2004.

Russia is a huge country with incredible wealth, but sparsely populated (beyond the Ukraine-Moscow region), which makes sufficient development of its subregions feasible. People like to laugh at an apparent lack of indoor plumbing in Russia, but that's just because some people want to live that way and often have for generations. There are still many nomads in Russia, secluded villages with little to no contact to the outside for decades, semi-nomadic people moving every few years and pulling up new temporary housing and other variations of people living simple lives.

If you want to live in a higher developed area, there's little stopping you from doing so. What's hard to escape in Russia are the Soviet style apartments and buying yourself into the top cities. Below that and up to that the social mobility is great, easily one of the best worldwide. Beyond thaf, you're screwed, unless you've got good contacts with capable contractors (or VERY deep pockets).

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But now enter the mess that's Ukraine. Much more densly populated, atrociously developed, basically no industry, hardly any profitable natural ressources (all hard and expensive to extract), the social mobility of Hellen Keller, about as well organized as a puzzle tossed from the 10th floor and walking on a random field has a lethality rate of about 20% per 10m.

Taking over responsibility for that catastrophe is signing yourself up for bankruptcy by thousand cuts.

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If Russia were aiming for there former USSR glory, step one would be Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Then Belarus. Most of these countries could be incorporated entirely through political moves, causing little to no international retaliation.

And only then would Ukraine or Georgia be brought to the chopping block. These countries have very high geostrategic value, but also extreme conflict potential, and not only in the military sense.

E.g. Ukraine is both for the US and the EU easy to bully around, if necessary. They're not going to stop buying gas from it, as long as relevant to the markets and available. And Russia can also easily bully Ukraine if necessary, under normal conditions Ukraine isn't going to stop buying gas from Russia. But if Russia and all these other EU/NATO states were to have yet another conflict with eachother, Russia could kiss that revenue good bye.

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And then there's the fact that the USSR failed but just recently before. People dont look favorably on it, neither in Russia nor anywhere else. The risk of people becoming maliciously compliant or outright striking, on top of the various political, social and institutional challenges, is just way too large. It's a good way go turn yourself into a failed state within but a few months.

And Putin would yet again face the reverse version of what he previously called the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century": Millions of people without any national representation being stuck in foreign nations.

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Putin is old and very popular in Russia. I doubt he's going to throw that away over a mission he's not only too old to complete himself, but is also almost certainly going to fail and turn Russia into a failed state.

> That and there's the theory that Putin himself was being fed in effect bad intelligence about both the readiness of his own armed forces as well as the general attitude of Ukrainians towards Russians

Maybe, but the guy has been at the top for too long and has been VERY successfully managing one of the most challenging nations on Earth. With a bureaucracy he's pretty much built himself from scratch after that infamous meeting with the oligarchs, which caused them to resign from politics over night.

The state of the Russian forces was atrocious, but despite all the pandering, it became obvious the military was never a high priority for Russia. They poured a lot of money into research projects/scams, had conscription (who cant be used in conflicts if no war is officially declared ("SMO" ...)) and a rather tiny professional army, that invaded Ukraine in 2022 (+2014, I guess). And a giant Soviet arsenal.

Putin might have been misled, but I think it's more likely that he just ran out of good options. You can almost hear him become desperate and slightly depressed during his call with President Macron just before the invasion. Also the constant begging for guarantees Ukraine wont join NATO during the months before.

I think he knew quite well that his gamble on Ukraine handling this like Georgia in 2008 was VERY risky.

> Given what Putin did to his rivals, not too hard to make a guess why they wouldn't want to give him bad news.

Heard a theory he does that to people who break certain agreements with him. Like Prigozhin. Made a public agreement with Putin not to return to Russia, but then kept cruising around Russia in his private jet for weeks, very publicly.

And for some reason just about anyone involved in the Chechens' raids against Russia during the second Chechen war. Guess there's a personal vendetta hidden somewhere.

> What purpose does seizing and holding does Kherson serve to in keeping the control over Crimea and the Strait of Kerch, exactly?

Quite an important one. The Kerch bridge is highly vulnerable and has little capacity, both for transport and utilities. A land connection would rectify this and Russia gave that very high priority during the beginning of the war. While the units in the north acted rather passively during the start of the invasion (some really bad apples excluded), the southern units went all in straight away.

Also Crimea was running out of water and Ukraine refused to negotiate about reopening the canal supplying 80% of Crimea's water (understandably, although in hindsight it was probably a bad idea). Crimea was absolutely screwed without that canal, many people not having anymore access to fresh water just before the invasion and the economy was in free fall. Russia took over the dam blocking the canal on day 1 and destroyed it on day 3.

> Why attempt go even further and seize Odessa?

I've seen speculations of connecting to Transnistria, but am not convinced that was the primary objective.

We just don't know, but if I had to guess there were 2 important objectives:

1. Taking over the large shipyards with its giant dry docks located along the Ukrainian coast east of Crimea. The docks there were among the largest the Soviets ever built.

2. Turning Ukraine into a landlocked country, then offering it sweetheart deals to achieve strong political control.

Might have also joined the captured area to Transnistria to convince Moldova to finally push ahead with the gradual reunification. In exchange for significant political influence, ofc. Clarification: Moldova isn't trying to sabotage any such efforts, the Transnistrian side absolutely is. But Transnistria will do as Russia commands and Moldova is constantly infighting with itself on a large variety of issues regarding both Romania and Transnistria. And Russia has an undisclosed, but obvious, interest in keeping Moldova away from Romania, at least until there's a favorable deal on Transnistria.

> Why open a northern front in the Kharkiv Oblast?

In the beginning: Overwhelming Kyiv by attacking from multiple directions.

Now: Most of the Ukrainian units are heavily entrenched in the Donbass making advancing very very difficult. Why advance at all? Because the more Ukraine needs to rebuild fortifications and set up new logistics, the more vulnerable they become.

Some of the areas in the Donbass have been built up for a decade. Russia obviously doesn't disclose any of this, but I'd imagine it to be an utter nightmare to push Ukraine out of there.

So the best option is probably making Ukraine move some of its forces elsewhere.

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You could also make the argument that Kharkiv could act as a buffer towards the Russian heartland and shield for the unified deep water system, but the DPR and LPR are WAY more important in that potential role.

> Why try to open a front from Belarus into Kyiv?

Pressure Kyiv, end it quickly. Apparently there were also plans to put pressure on Lviv, but either that was a myth, fizzled out or is being kept hidden very well.

> That's an awful lot of fronts to open up to try take territory that Russia does not want.

But way too few people to hold it. When Ukraine started preparing its counter offensive and Russia built its own fortifications, Russia heavily reduced the width and depth of its frontline. We dont have any accurate numbers for any phase of the war, but Putin mentioned that the Russian forces were distributed extremely sparsely on a much too long frontline. Wagner and later the adsorption of other PMCs rectified that a bit, but if Prigozhin is to be believed, the Russians didn't treat them ... very kindly when they still were a separate force.