The Chechen war (population of Chechnya is less than 2 million) lasted 8 months, so whoever believed that Ukraine would fall in days was clearly too optimistic.
But assuming that Zelensky would have surrendered on the first week, Putin would have just signed up Minsk 3 and thousands of civilians and soldiers wouldn't have had to die.
But that didn't happen, so we are now watching the slow grind for every Ukrainian town

That's not what that clickbait article is saying though. And the troops that were in the northern front where redeployed in the eastern one. All of this because the Russians were stupidly trying to blitz the entire country without taking control of any town or city on the way.
But they changed their strategy now. They went from a speedrun to a 100% walkthrough, in simple words