SGR

Y'know this brings up another idea - could it be that Russian generals and military brass are slow-rolling this thing because Putin is more sick/ill than we know?

E.g. Putin asks them why they haven't sieged and taken over this place or that place and they respond: "Oh, well we need this and we need that and as soon as you get those to us, we'll get right on it" - they then get the requested supplies - "Oh, thanks but the shipment was slightly wrong, you sent this instead of that..." etc.

In circumstances where they know they'd lose their own life if they didn't sacrafice a third of their men in a war operation, they might not hesitate, but if they know Putin is on his way out soon, and is losing his grip on power, perhaps slow-rolling the operation and waiting it out appears a more sane alternative than sacraficing a third of their unit in a messy military operation.

Or perhaps it's just incompetence and poor planning.

The Putin of old seemed to be a cold calculating bastard. The idea that he'd green light this without getting his military advisors deeply involved would seem strange to me. To your point, it's possible that he's surrounded by so many yes-men that they wouldn't tell him the truth if it's a truth he wouldn't like - even if that's the case though, I suppose Putin wouldn't really know what they were getting into. I know that the Kremlin controls the domestic information/propaganda pretty tightly, but you'd think even still, word would spread in whispers about his failing health, and that would do anything but instill confidence in the operation among the military.

Fair enough - it's more and more looking like that's what is going to happen, though it's hard to know what news sources to rely on. But if I had to place a bet, I don't think Russia is winning this thing. Putin's most face-saving out at this point might be to try and maintain control of the limited areas they have and try to spin that domestically as a "Great Russian Victory"