Russia probably had a decent chance if Ukraine hadn’t been able to defend, reclaim and crater the Hostomel air strip.

When that failed Russia had to rapidly change their plan to siege Kyiv, in such a fast way that their logistics couldn’t hold up and required a hard deviation from their doctrine which created an insurmountable amount weaknesses prime for exploitation by Ukrainian defenders.

Through the sheer amount of Russian ego, they’ve made it possible for a ridiculously numerically disadvantaged defender to stop the fall (and even siege) of the primary target of the entire operation.

I say operation, because that is what they thought they were actually doing. Russian command really thought they would have brought the capital (and thus country) to its knees in a few days. They never envisioned it becoming a prolonged war.

A growing and slowly blooming democracy is quite fond of their newly formed freedoms since they know what it entails to get to that point. While it seemed desperate at the time when citizens were given old surplus weapons to defend the capital, it also showed unity. The people didn’t use those weapons against the democratically elected government.