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Notes -
If I were a Ukrainian citizen, especially one living anywhere west of Kharkiv, I think I'd see the current situation as a significant upgrade from "decades long grinding insurgency." Leaving aside romantic nationalism, the human suffering involved in a society supporting an insurgency is massive, outstripping that involved in a conventional war by an order of magnitude. To say nothing of the suffering that seems to be inflicted in areas occupied during this war.
And "occupying the major cities/seat of government" and work from there is what Putin would have gotten, and he tried to get it on the cheap. You can argue it would have been a long and bloody occupation and ultimately a negative for Russia, but that's not really the point, it would have been different had they taken Kyiv. It is unlikely sanctions would have lasted at their current, mutually destructive level had Kyiv fallen. It is unlikely that no European country would make a serious effort towards a compromise peace if Kyiv fell.
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