Oui, on Feb. 11, 2022:

Imagine we wait 10 days for the Russian military exercises to expire and all young recruits can go back to their bases and a small contingent will remain.

Obviously, there are not going back to their bases just yet.

As for me, I just thought this was the most likely outcome: nobody amasses that much military forces on three sides of a country to leave it unused. But it was just probability; I've never taken any bet (and certainly not on human lives): everyone who claimed to know Putin's mind was a liar or a fool (or both).

OK, now we know.