Putin surprised by Ukraine resistance

 Monica Showalter:

Ukraine is fighting back.

And that must startle invading Vladimir Putin, who seems to have expected another Afghanistan-style takeover, the way the Taliban did it -- the Taliban marching in, the the local president loading up his money and flying off without a fight, and the boldest locals cramming onto U.S. waiting jets. Few fought back in that one and the disaster speaks for itself.

We don't see that in Ukraine. The U.S. offered Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a flight out and he refused it. "I need ammunition, not a ride," he told the U.S.

He was last seen dressed in a military t-shirt with his cabinet in comparable gear and probably had a rifle in his hand. After that, he was seen in combat fatigues and a hard helmet, marching through brush. "When you attack us, you will see our faces, not our backs," he told the Russians. He told Ukrainians this might the the last time they saw him alive. The mayor of Kyiv had his fatigues and rifle, too, and was last seen positioned on a rooftop. Thirteen Ukrainian border guards on a place called 'Snake Island' off Crimea screamed to the invading Russians 'Go f--- yourselves' upon their call to surrender, knowing they would be shot dead and they were. The government radio station advised locals how to build their own Molotov cocktails with which to greet the entering Russians. That's normally a poor man's weapon associated with groups like antifa, but Molotov cocktails were invented by the Finns, who successfully repelled a Soviet invasion in 1939. The Soviets ended it quickly because they didn't want to mess around with the Finns. The Ukrainians are showing them yet again. Girls, very old people, all sorts of Ukrainians are signing up for military service. An old lady handed out sunflower seeds to invading Russian troops, advising them that they'd need some seeds for flowers to grow on their coming gravesites. A soldier blew himself up to destroy a bridge to prevent the Russians from entering. Other heroic Ukrainians are taking government-issued rifles and will fight sniper-style from high rises. A mysterious flying ace called 'the Ghost of Kyiv' reportedly shot down 6 invading fighter jets, thrilling the world as the world's first flying ace since World War II, although the story was reportedly not true. It was something people wanted to believe, though, because the masculine virtue of mortal combat, described in Tom Wolfe's 'The Right Stuff' always thrills people in a life-and-death struggle. There was one unconfirmed report that the Ukrainians are taking the war to Russia itself, reportedly strafing Rostov airport much to Putin's surprise.

The great historian Simon Schama, who knows the region's history well better than Putin does, and who was recently filming in Ukraine, noted this:

That tweet deserves weight, given the depth of Schama's knowledge. Schama knows history in minute details and knows how to interpret history. He's seeing Napoleon and that's bad news for Putin.

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Not only is Ukraine fighting back more effectively than the Afghan government did against the Taliban, but Russia's forces are not looking all that good in dealing with the Ukraine resistance.  Russia is also feeling an economic push back by the Europeans and the US that is weakening Putin's hand.  That the war is taking Putin longer than expected makes the economic impact more important.

See, also:

Former CIA station chief says 'Russia has overstretched' its military supply lines and lacks troops to 'subdue' Ukraine

And: 

Putin’s claim to rid Ukraine of Nazis is especially absurd given its history