[New/Lines] Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine is now entering its third week and the much-anticipated fall of Kyiv, estimated by various Western officials last month to be likely within the space of about 72 hours, has not yet occurred. Nor has Russia managed to sack any major population center. The one city it "holds," the provincial capital of Kherson, is restive: Ukrainians turn out daily to protest their armed occupiers, and now fresh reports are trickling in of mass arrests of civilians and anyone thought to have been associated with Ukrainian authorities.One country in Europe has been bolder in making projections that this war will not end in Putin’s favor: Estonia, for which Russia has historically been the overriding national security and military preoccupation at all levels of government. On Feb. 28, Mikk Marran, the head of Välisluureamet, Estonia’s foreign intelligence service, told New Lines that he didn’t believe Putin could "keep up an intensive war for more than two months" and that ultimately "Russia will not win this war."
A senior Estonian analyst with years of experience tracking Russia’s military affairs concurs with that assessment but doesn’t even think it’ll take another two months to bear fruit — it already is doing so.