The initial Russian plan was a costly failure, in part because—incredibly enough—it minimized Russian strengths and maximized Russian weaknesses, apparently in service of a strategy that seems to have been predicated on terrible intelligence that underestimated the Ukrainian military and overestimated Ukrainian support for Russia. Russian firepower helps mask Russian weaknesses in the training, discipline, and skill of its rank-and-file soldiers. Compounding the tactical error, Russia divided its forces, striking a very large European country from multiple directions at once, with no one single striking force possessing the ability to decisively punch through Ukrainian defenses in the opening days.