I'm not sure where did you got that Russian invasion become surprise for Ukraine, NATO and West. IIRC, few days before inavsion, USA intelligence warned that inavsion can begin at any moment, on 23th February state of emergency started in Ukraine. Though, Ukraine admitted that they didn't expected invasion in North, from Belarus side.
And I'm not sure why you're saying about too small forces, when there was close ti 200k troops near to Ukrainian border.
He is probably considering that USA attacked 3 times smaller country (Iraq) with 5 times more soldiers (almost a million) and
only after 42 days of one of heaviest bombardment in history