That's just a one possibility. I've been following the situation all day and at the end, to me from my armchair general position, it seems like that the whole thing was way too easy. Just take a nice roadtrip with friends from the frontlines into practically borders of Moscow and get a free pass to do whatever you wish, regardless of FSB and other three letter agencies at Russia.

So, my (very much amateur) take on this is that either it was preplanned or the Russia is in real problems and way over their heads to really do anything else than migitiate the threat with whatever they have available. If the latter is really the case then it could be interesting if Kazachstan and Ubekiztan really hold their support for Putin, Erdogan of course included, or if they take their chance with independce.

Either way the following weeks should be pretty interesting.