Russia’s “3-5 day takeover of Kiev” was 100% within the range of expected possibility at the time, and the quick exposure of Russia’s relative paper tiger advance was the result of endemic corruption.

Almost, the initial troops sent into the SMO were not enough to take over Kiev, hence why I wrote "force peace talks". Because that is literally what they did, at no point was there an attempt to storm Kiev.

And negotiations did happen and were on their way towards a positive conclusion for Russia if not for the intervention of the west via Boris Johnson. There were quite a few logistical fuckups which took time fixing, but they came to bear after plan A (quick show of force and then negotiate peace) failed, not before.