Comments by "R Johansen" (@rjohansen9486) on "Ukraine Puts U.S. In Dock, Claims West Permitted Crimea Attacks; 'Red-Faced' Washington Quarrels" video.

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  4. @@bewt09 Newsweek: At the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, several Russian pundits and analysts, including prominent Russian propagandist and head of the RT channel, Margarita Simonyan, said that Russian troops would take Ukraine's capital within a few days. Russian President Vladimir Putin was considering a strategy to encircle Kyiv earlier on in the war, but Ukrainian troops' defense efforts meant the battle extended to other cities including Odesa, Kherson, and most recently, Bakhmut. There is a number of video clips that showed several Russian pundits and analysts saying that Kyiv would fall quickly to Russia. One of those clips showed Simonyan saying that in a "hot war, we would defeat Ukraine in two days." In similar remarks, Simonyan has previously said that Russia "defeated Ukraine in the first two or three days." U.S. officials also noted at the time that Russia's strategy was based on quickly taking the Ukrainian capital. On March 8, 2022, CIA Director William Burns told lawmakers that Putin's plan was premised upon "seizing Kyiv within the first two days of the campaign." U.S. intelligence assessed that the capital could fall right after the invasion. Three U.S. officials, who spoke anonymously to Newsweek last year, said that Moscow planned to encircle Ukrainian forces and make them surrender. The officials said that Russians at the time expected Kyiv to be taken within 96 hours, and then the leadership of Ukraine to follow in about a week's time.
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