I saw the cope justification in the past (not from Szaba) that Putin's failure to take Kyiv was in fact just a "tactical feint".
Either Putin failed to take Kyiv or he intentionally wasted tens of thousands of troops where the actual aim was nothing. Let the pro Kremlin propagandists take their pick of those two awesome options.
Nothing rational about the pro Kremlin propagandists, just copious amounts of copium.
