Not sure how you fit the failed Russian paratrooper assault on the airport in Kyiv, the stranded column heading towards the capital, the high casualty rate and loss of equipment in which dress uniforms were found. Unless you have solid grounds to say that this was all fake news, then the easiest solution is to believe Putin when he first expressed his war aims for Ukraine, namely to decapitate its government (controlled by some combination of Nazis and drug addicts) and reincorporate it into Russia.
If this maneuver was meant to be a raid to draw off Ukrainian soldiers from fighting in the East, it was a very costly sideshow and doesn’t adequately explain the Ukrainian counter-offensive that dislodged Russian forces from parts of the Donbas. It also fails to account for the on-the-scene reporting by Russian military bloggers expressing anger at their military’s performance - unless they too are part of a disinformation campaign which we would have to believe is principally targeted at the Russian home front (unless they are all in on it as well - in which case we have entered a tin-hat conspiracy zone).
From a distance, and given both sides’ interest in pushing their own narratives and propaganda, it is hard to make clear sense of what is actually happening on the ground. Let’s just say that I’m skeptical of your take.
It is pretty clear at this juncture that the "blitz" in the north very nearly worked. It was meant as a threatening advance that would shake the confidence of the Uke government. Volololdomyrrrhhhrr Zelenskiiiyeyeyeyeyeiii was ready to capitulate to Russian demands and, as part of that deal, the Russians were withdrawing from the north (after whipping the Uke's arses inflicting 2 casualties for every 1 sustained according to UKE sources) when NATO thugs (that British stooge with the stupid hair) came in and ordered him to fight on and sacrifice Ukrainian men so the west could continue pillaging Ukraine.
It's difficult to pierce the veil of mis- and disinformation surrounding events in Ukraine, especially from a distance using open source information. However, in early 2022 it seemed clear that Russia was driving hard to seize Kyiv and was willing to conduct very risky operations in order to achieve that objective. The fact that each axis of the invasion was conducted by different Russian commands without much in the way of centralized C2 does not support the theory of the northern axis being a masterful deception plan. It seems more likely that Russia simply stopped reinforcing failure in the north in order to reinforce success on other fronts.
It seems unlikely the Russians were really trying to seize Kiev. It is a city of 3,000,000 people and Russia committed, at most, 100,000 total troops to the entire SMO.
Not sure how you fit the failed Russian paratrooper assault on the airport in Kyiv, the stranded column heading towards the capital, the high casualty rate and loss of equipment in which dress uniforms were found. Unless you have solid grounds to say that this was all fake news, then the easiest solution is to believe Putin when he first expressed his war aims for Ukraine, namely to decapitate its government (controlled by some combination of Nazis and drug addicts) and reincorporate it into Russia.
If this maneuver was meant to be a raid to draw off Ukrainian soldiers from fighting in the East, it was a very costly sideshow and doesn’t adequately explain the Ukrainian counter-offensive that dislodged Russian forces from parts of the Donbas. It also fails to account for the on-the-scene reporting by Russian military bloggers expressing anger at their military’s performance - unless they too are part of a disinformation campaign which we would have to believe is principally targeted at the Russian home front (unless they are all in on it as well - in which case we have entered a tin-hat conspiracy zone).
From a distance, and given both sides’ interest in pushing their own narratives and propaganda, it is hard to make clear sense of what is actually happening on the ground. Let’s just say that I’m skeptical of your take.
It is pretty clear at this juncture that the "blitz" in the north very nearly worked. It was meant as a threatening advance that would shake the confidence of the Uke government. Volololdomyrrrhhhrr Zelenskiiiyeyeyeyeyeiii was ready to capitulate to Russian demands and, as part of that deal, the Russians were withdrawing from the north (after whipping the Uke's arses inflicting 2 casualties for every 1 sustained according to UKE sources) when NATO thugs (that British stooge with the stupid hair) came in and ordered him to fight on and sacrifice Ukrainian men so the west could continue pillaging Ukraine.
It's difficult to pierce the veil of mis- and disinformation surrounding events in Ukraine, especially from a distance using open source information. However, in early 2022 it seemed clear that Russia was driving hard to seize Kyiv and was willing to conduct very risky operations in order to achieve that objective. The fact that each axis of the invasion was conducted by different Russian commands without much in the way of centralized C2 does not support the theory of the northern axis being a masterful deception plan. It seems more likely that Russia simply stopped reinforcing failure in the north in order to reinforce success on other fronts.
It seems unlikely the Russians were really trying to seize Kiev. It is a city of 3,000,000 people and Russia committed, at most, 100,000 total troops to the entire SMO.