>

I'd say less the installed puppets and more that his inner circle of advisors are either completely sycophantic and assured him that Russian might would be able to steamroll to Kyiv or simply kept quiet knowing full well the true state of the military. Either way, pretty typical dictator stuff - anyone with dissenting opinions is either removed or executed and so an echo chamber forms. 
This coupled with a personal low opinion of Ukraine led Russia to believe the government would fold which they very well might had Zelenskyy decided to flee.
“Inflict defeat”
Playing the victim while being the aggressor.
“Stop hitting back, you’re hurting me!” >

Typical bullying narcissist behavior to flip the morality of the situation back at the victims. 
"Stop hurting me! I'm only hurting you because I ~~love you~~ want to install a puppet government and steal your valuable lands and resources!" >

It's more sinister than being a bullying narcissist. Since Soviet times, Russia and the KGB's strategy has always been to befuddle the truth and skew any information that people get. They've been doing it for over a century.
Putin's an old KGB agent and he's using the old playbook, but I honestly think he's so old and geriatric that he doesn't understand that the world doesn't work in that same way in the modern information age. Maybe in Russia where he controls practically everything, but this sort of thing just sounds comical to the rest of us. The guy is still living in the USSR c. 1975. >


Putin's an old KGB agent and he's using the old playbook, but I honestly think he's so old and geriatric that he doesn't understand that the world doesn't work in that same way in the modern information age.

Completely agree on this one. Planning their invasion for several days just proves this. This guy definitely needs an updated OS. Unfortunately, this will never happen since his KGB school just "seals" everything he knows not leaving a chance for the update. Sad though. >

Could you please expand upon the "planning their invasion for several days just proves this" comment? Was that not enough, or too much planning? >

I wonder if they meant 'planning for an invasion that would only take a few days' - i.e. the Russians thought that they would take Kyiv in a few days, and then it would all be over? >

Yes, they literally believed the entire operation would be over in three days. And that's because Putin thought he had installed his puppets in every leadership position, and those puppets would just hand the nation over to him. That only worked in Kherson, but all the others took the money and ran.