So, based on my best available hunch I am guessing next Monday February 21st 2022 4am Ukraine time events kick off.
If not before. This is loosely based on the end of the Olympics which conclude on Sunday Feb 20th.
last time the Russians invaded was 27 February 2014
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation
Closing ceremony was 23 February 2014
Yes there was a lag, but the invasion was a little more re-active and dynamic than the current situation.
Following the ousting of the pro Russian Ukrainian president.
In this case I think the Russians were ready to go much earlier then the winter Olympics.
I honestly think they were planning to go towards the beginning of January when the Kazakhstan happened and the Russians were essentially forced to commit some highly specialized troops to tamp down that problem that were likely on the time phased deployment of forces to the Ukraine Front
So the actual intervention started on the 6th of January 2022 following protests and unrest that kicked off with the new year and gas price rises.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Kazakh_unrest
The forces started to "withdraw" on the 13th of January 2022
That meant that there was basically two weeks until the opening ceremony for the Beijing 2022 Olympics which kicked off Friday February 4th 2022 which Putin attended.
I am fairly sure that China did not want its Olympics to be overshadowed by an Ukraine invasion.
I am guessing that Russia thinks/ thought that they could roll into Ukraine and wrap things up in 2-4 weeks.
And yes, I think that might be partially accurate. I think they could essentially occupy everything in a couple weeks, but they are going to have a long term insurgency after that.
No indication that they are going to be meet with relatively open arms and roses such as 2014.
So I think that originally the plan was to to go end of December 2021 early January 2022 with massive invasion and a plan to have things pretty well wrapped up a week or so prior to the Olympics.
At which point in time world focus would have shifted to China and less eyes on events in Ukraine.
The Kazak intervention was a monkey wrench in the gears and threw that timeline off.
The elite units trained for crowd control were placed on alert to go to Kazakhstan with the new year and had to pull chocks and go on the 6th and then only started to head back to original garrisons on the 13th.
Which means they probably were not ready for any Ukraine tasking until probably a week later, Lets just say 20 Feb 2022 which is now less than two weeks prior to the Olympics.
No the planned timeline doesn't work anymore. The Russian generals still think 3 weeks. But now you would have western journalists all focused on Ukraine and maybe the Olympics gets overshadowed.
So Putin goes to China on the 4th and has zoom meetings with China before and then when he arrives.
I am pretty sure that Xi Jinping told Putin something to the effect of this. Don't really care what you do with Ukraine. But don't screw up my Olympics.
I am also sure that Putin did not like to hear this. As he really doesn't like to be told what to do.
However, he had to swallow the pill. But the pill was coated with sugar in the sense that China likely said also we won't try and muck about your eastern boarders while you in Ukraine, which allowed Putin to pull a large amount of specialized forces that are normally on the Russian China border
So baring a major breakthrough on the diplomatic front something is going to happen after the Olympics end. I don't think Putin is misguided enough to piss of the Chinese. But who knows with him.
The "what" of something happening is up for debate. Will the Russians go full bore into Ukraine, or something else?
Not sure. I am sure that there are lots of pizza boxes being delivered to a lot of really smart folks with 40 pound brains in the DC area whom have a lot of access to really cool information streams and even cooler toys working that exact issue now.
Here I am to a certain extent Sunday and Monday morning Quarterbacking Ukraine. And to use the analogy. I am not in the game and don't play every Sunday.
So I'm not sure what plays the west may be calling. But every minute that the west can delay Russia from doing the "what" buys more time for Ukraine to prepare for the possible worst. And the worst could be very very bad.
I think we need to look to Chechnya for how bad bad could be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War
