The withdrawal of Russian troops from the outskirts of Kiev and the north-east of the country is “largely complete”. In about a week, Moscow forces will reposition themselves in Donbas, according to US officials.
With the approach of the traditional Russian Victory Day parade on May 9, Putin wants to show the achievements of the invasion before the Russian people. And in the face of the failure to take control of the Ukrainian capital, the focus will now be on the eastern Donbas region.
“There are some indications that they left mines and the like, so Ukrainians are being somewhat careful in some areas north of Kiev as they begin to clear the land and clear the territory and reoccupy it,” a US official told ABC News.
According to US intelligence, Putin's rush to show some success of his invasion to the citizens of his country may generate tension among commanders of the Russian army who want to do things in the right times, without the pressure of domestic politics, the Guardian reported.
According to analysts, Russia seeks to concentrate the offensive in southern and eastern Ukraine, in order to occupy the entire Donbas and create territorial continuity with the Crimean peninsula, annexed in 2014.
The Ukrainian authorities called upon the population of those territories to leave as soon as possible to the west.
The choice is to do it “now” or “risk death,” said Unkranian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
AFP journalists recorded bombings on Wednesday in Severodonetsk, a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants before the war, close to the front line with the pro-Russian separatist territories of the Donbas.
“We know that the Russians are strengthening and preparing to attack,” a senior Ukrainian official told AFP in the Donbas city of Krasnopilia. “We are ready, we have prepared some surprises for them along the way.”
The Russians made some unsuccessful efforts to penetrate the heart of Kiev, and then tried to surround the capital, venturing further to the west. Against all odds, the Ukrainians stood firm and held back the Russians, using very efficiently Western-supplied weaponry, including portable anti-tank equipment, shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and much more.
Last week the Russians left Hostomel as part of a much broader retreat.
A memorable aspect of the battle for Kiev was the presence of a publicized Russian resupply caravan of several kilometers on one of the main routes to the capital. Initially he got scared of the Ukrainians, but his forces managed to launch attacks and disperse the caravan to such an extent that it did not affect the war.
“At no time did they offer a relevant resupply to the forces that were deployed around Kiev, they never contributed anything,” said US Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. “The Ukrainians stopped that caravan pretty quickly, knocking down bridges, attacking the advance and driving with great agility.”
One expert says that the Russians underestimated the number of troops they would need and demonstrated a “surprising inability” in the performance of basic military functions. They miscalculated what they needed to capture Kiev, he said.
“It was going to be a bit tough even if the Russian army had been competent,” he said. “But he proved incapable of waging a modern war.”
Putin is not the only one surprised by the initial setbacks of his army. Experts from the West predicted that, if there were an invasion, Ukraine would fall in a short time and the Russians would take the capital in a matter of days and the country in a few weeks. Some analysts did wonder whether Putin had weighed well the level of training Ukrainians received from the West, especially after the Russian capture of Crimea and its incursion into Donbas.
On March 25, a month after the start of the invasion, the Russians said they had achieved their objectives in the Kiev region and would focus on the separatist area of Donbas in eastern Ukraine. Some speculated that Putin wanted to buy time without giving up his goal, but within a few days the withdrawal from Kiev was impossible to disguise.
(With information from AFP and AP)
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