At the time people knew it would be a bad move for Russia to invade not because of whether it would militarily go well but because of the sanctions that would follow and hurt the Russian economy. Also when I said people in Ukraine said that I meant government officials. I didn’t go more into that as I don’t fully remember the context but I remember before the invasion there were news interviews with Ukrainian officials saying that Russia wouldn’t invade and that the US shouldn’t stoke tensions in the region.

With all of that in mind I think it’s fair to think that Russia wasn’t actually gonna invade because it would be really stupid for them to do so and the people in the region were saying it wouldn’t happen. I don’t think that analysis is delusional, the conclusion ended up being wrong but the reasoning behind it was solid at the time. Of course with hind sight you can see more signs and reasons as to why it ended up happening but with the info that was available at the time it made sense as to why invading would be a bad idea. Which was proven right by how badly the war has been going both economically and militarily for Russia.