CNN’s Christiane Amanpour interviews Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on March 22, 2022.
CNN
- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was going to plan.
- He told CNN that Russia never expected it to take “a couple of days.”
- Analysts disagree, saying Russia appeared to plan to a swift campaign that instead stalled.
Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, has denied that Russia had expected a swift victory over Ukraine and claimed the invasion was going as planned.
Speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday, Peskov said that Russia’s invasion was on schedule, despite evidence that it has ground to a halt.
“Russia’s special military operation is going on strictly in accordance with the plans and with purposes that were established beforehand,” said Peskov.
He said that from the beginning, no one had expected it to take “a couple of days.”
—Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) March 22, 2022
Peskov’s attempts to spin the invasion as a success runs counter to multiple assessments by Western military and intelligence officials as well as independent analysts, who have said that Russia expected a swift victory. Russian state media also appeared to have planned for a short, decisive campaign.
CIA Director Bill Burns has told Congress in recent testimony that Putin had expected Ukraine to fall in two days.
Western allies also appeared to have limited confidence in Ukraine’s ability to endure. The US and other allies evacuated their embassies from Kyiv in the runup to the invasion. Although the city has endured shelling as well as fierce fighting around its outskirts, it was still firmly in Ukrainian hands four weeks into the war.
The US also offered to evacuate Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy from Kyiv at the start of the war, appearing to fear for his life — Zelenskyy instead remained in the city and has continued to appear in public there.
Overall, the Russian invasion has stalled in face of tough Ukrainian resistance, with troops bogged down amid logistical problems sustaining high casualty rates. Russia has yet to take control of a major Ukrainian city, and has not established air dominance.
Russia has targeted civilians as its invasion has stalled, and President Joe Biden has warned it could resort to the use of chemical weapons to terrorize Ukraine into submission.
Read the original article on Business Insider 
