Ask Lemmygrad

This is complete and utter nonsense. In retrospect it has become even more clear that the right decision was made. The only mistake was not doing it sooner, and as a result it will now take longer. But there was no way that Russia could tolerate a rabidly russophobic, criminal and terrorist Nazi regime pumped full of NATO weapons on its border. Not only that but if they did not intervene when they did then the two Donbass republics would have suffered the same fate as Nagorno-Karabakh is now. Or do you like seeing the ethnic cleansing going on there? Do you enjoy the fact that tens of thousands of Armenians have been displaced and have fled their ancestral lands due to being unable to hold back the Azeri army anymore while Armenian government betrayed them and refused to defend them? Already hundreds have died, and not just soldiers but many civilians who were too old and frail and did not survive the journey. Now imagine all of what we are seeing in Karabakh but on ten times the scale as the Donbass republics are home to more than two million people.

The only thing you could argue is that it was a mistake for Putin to go as soft and with as few troops in as he did in the beginning when he was still hoping to achieve the desired result via negotiations. It was never about "conquering Ukraine" but about bringing them back to the negotiating table. Due to western involvement that has proved impossible, though they came close in Turkey, and now Russia is left no other choice but to see this through to the end with military means. Ironically this may indeed result in Ukraine's complete destruction as a state if they decide to fight to the end and not capitulate. This was not Russia's intention and they have done everything possible, including trying over and over again to negotiate ever since 2014 on terms very favorable to Ukraine. The intransigence of the West in giving up on their plans to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russian stronghold has brought us to where we are today.

Furthermore, the West has all but admitted that they purposely provoked the conflict in hopes of achieving regime change in Russia. It was they who miscalculated. They underestimated Russia on the military front (as Russia is now out producing virtually the entire collective West in terms of war materiel which puts them in an excellent position to win a war of attrition) and even more importantly they severely underestimated Russia on the economic front, with the sanctions failing to achieve the desired collapse and instead massively backfiring on the West itself while incentivizing Russia to develop its domestic self-reliance as well as its ties to Asia.

But really i didn't need to write three whole paragraphs explaining why this article is unadulterated bullshit, all you had to do to know that is look at who wrote it: the ISW is a notorious neocon propaganda think tank associated with some of the worst fascists, historical revisionists, russophobes, diehard imperialist warmongers and regime change enthusiasts like Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan. Anything a source like this puts out will virtually always be the complete opposite of reality. Please for the love of whatever deity you may or may not believe in, LEARN TO BE MORE DISCERNING OF YOUR SOURCES!