Sure that was a plan, but it turns such movements of tanks proved very detrimental to Russia.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking if only X, but war is complicated. It’s possible Russia would have been worse off because they tried to use those VDV soldiers in a plan that disastrously failed. It’s slightly more likely that they would have been a small net benefit, but chances are things would look more or less identical today with or without them.
My guy, the dismissive tone of "it's not an action movie" while backpedaling to "tut tut, sure that might have been their specific plan but have you considered unintended consequences" is too much for me.
Saying doing X wouldn’t have mattered is a perfectly reasonable rebuttal here. Ukraine not using a missile for attacking that aircraft means they could have used it to attack a different aircraft. Similarly Russia got to use all forces in that plan not destroyed with the aircraft in some other plan.
That’s not backpedaling that’s just the inherent complexities involved.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking if only X, but war is complicated. It’s possible Russia would have been worse off because they tried to use those VDV soldiers in a plan that disastrously failed. It’s slightly more likely that they would have been a small net benefit, but chances are things would look more or less identical today with or without them.