It’s been two weeks, and Vladimir Putin still has not taken Kyiv. The war in Ukraine is a Rorschach test: One observer sees a Russian war machine continuing to grind forward, ineptly but ultimately irresistibly. A second squints and sees a Russian army in a quagmire of its own making — out of gas, out of food and dangerously low on fighting spirit.

It’s important to keep this in perspective: The Kremlin is still favored to win this fight through sheer weight of men, materiel and firepower. The Russian army is not, as some have said, a piper tiger. Instead, it’s a wounded tiger. And a wounded, desperate animal is a dangerous one.

Putin has made two critical mistakes. First, he did not expect to encounter a Ukrainian people in arms. He did not expect the Ukrainian army to put up a fierce, stubborn resistance in the field. And he did not expect to face off with a comedian-turned-president who has turned out to be a savvy social-media star with the spirit of a latter-day Winston Churchill.

Second, the Russian dictator frankly expected more out of his own troops.

After suffering severe neglect in the ’90s, during Russia’s post-Soviet financial crisis, the army began to reorganize and modernize with the strengthening of the Russian economy under Putin. The Russians spent vast sums of money over the last 20 years to modernize and improve their equipment and kit — everything from new main battle tanks to, in 2013, ordering Russian troopers to finally retire the traditional portyanki foot wraps and switch to wool socks.

But Russian money and Russian kit can’t entirely make up for the deficiencies of a poorly trained, poorly led and poorly motivated army that is disproportionately made up of conscripts. A high number of the soldiers wearing NCO stripes in the modern Russian army are little more than senior draftees near the end of their only 12-month term of service.

As the saying goes, however, you go to war with the army you have. And the Russian army of 2022 should be sufficient to conquer Ukraine. It’s the Russian failures at the operational and logistical levels that have truly been staggering: the inability to secure total air superiority, armored convoys of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles that appear to be unsupported by an appropriate logistical train and the decision to launch contested air assaults into the teeth of Ukrainian air defenses.

We shouldn’t be surprised that some Russian units are running low on supplies or stuck in the mud. It’s extremely difficult to keep an army supplied in the field while on the move. “Friction,” as Carl von Clausewitz wrote, is that factor in war that makes “even the simplest thing difficult.” The Russians, however, are experiencing a hell of a lot of friction. So much friction that it’s hard not to call it incompetence.

Finally, there is the tactical level.

To win in modern, mechanized warfare, soldiers must be willing to close with the enemy. Aggression and the will to fight are the hallmarks of a successful attacking force. Tanks and armored vehicles are incredibly vulnerable to modern anti-tank missiles. As the Ukrainians have proved, a two- or three-man team armed with a Javelin or NLAW anti-tank-missile system, can wreak havoc on a mechanized column if it is allowed to get close enough to make kill shots.

To counter this, well-trained mechanized infantry must be willing to, on a moment’s notice, leave the perceived safety of an infantry-fighting vehicle and serve as a screen for the armor. Working as a combined-arms team, the infantry can neutralize the anti-tank missile teams and the armor can then provide covering fire.

But by all accounts, the Russians appear to be noticeably reluctant to dismount and close with the Ukrainian defenders. Whether they don’t want to fight their Slavic cousins, or a lack of small-unit leadership, Russian troops are simply not taking the fight to the Ukrainians. But, counterintuitively, it makes you more vulnerable to enemy fires. Hanging back in perceived safety leads to defeat.

Plan A has failed: In search of a quick victory, the Russians have exposed their weaknesses for all to see.

But a dangerous, wounded tiger always has Plan B. It’s why Vladimir Putin has now turned to brute force to try to smash his way into the capital. He will use the Russian army’s tremendous advantage in artillery, rockets and high explosives to blast his way into Kyiv. There, he will only find, as Solzhenitsyn once wrote, a city “enshrouded in fire.”

Mark Antonio Wright is the executive editor of National Review.