On Xi Yazhou's special edition podcast today about the current conflict he brings up an interesting theory to explain some recent unusual happening before the fighting started:
Recall between the 16th and 20th, US pulled out some military advisor from Ukraine? The theory is that this group bought with them a
, a small nuclear device and gave it to the Ukrainians to assure them of their defences. Biden then found out about this and said have you lost your mind?! and had the team pulled out, and they took the device back with them.
Putin would then have found out about this from his intelligence services and went ballistic and ordered a much larger military operation than originally planned in response. This also explains also why at Munich Zelenskyy suddenly said if Ukraine isn't allowed to join NATO then maybe it's time for Ukraine to develop its own nuclear weapon, he had this device on his mind.
This would also explain why the amount of troops Russia committed seems lower than what's needed for the size of the front they're pushing.