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Reading this, I am truly baffled by how underinformed/misinformed Americans (even in the rationalist community) were on eastern Europe. Analysts from central and eastern Europe have now for some time been pointing out that A) Ukrainian military in 2022 is on a whole different level than in 2014. Since the annexation of Crimea and start of civil war in Donbass, Ukrainians were expecting they will have to face Russians directly sooner or later and with the help of NATO have beefed-up it's military significantly. On the other hand the Russian military is based on their age-old (and often successful) "nas mnogo" ("there's a lot of us") strategy. It's direct investment into technology was squeezed in past years by western sanctions and general downfall of Russian economy and because their own bias about their military might it was not prioritised. The military does have some pretty neat machines and weapons, but they seriously lack in logistics, rendering their deployment slow and less effective. The consensus was that while Russian army clearly is bigger and stronger, the Ukrainian army will likely give them a really hard time.
I recommend recent, criminally underrated videos by Adam Something on this conflict. For those who prefer reading, Anne Applebaum is an amazing source on Russian geopolitics, Peter Pomerantsev is great source on the inner workings of their propaganda machine.