The fact that it is literally too painful for you to admit the Russian army was decisively defeated at Kyiv and had to retreat tells me all I need to know about your pro-Kremlin imperialism agenda.
I highly doubt the Russian Army was 'decisively defeated at Kyiv and forced to retreat'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo...2022_Russian_Invasion_of_Ukraine_animated.gif
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War
As the above animated gif of the war so far shows - the Russians were not pushed back from retreat.
They left - completely voluntarily.
They even announced they were going to leave Kiev and all northern areas a few days before they pulled out.
Also, there is no way that Ukraine could force Russian forces to retreat that fast and yet not be able to budge them almost anywhere else.
That makes ZERO sense.
CLEARLY, Russia voluntarily gave up ALL of their northern gains.
But why?
I assume because they were hoping to either divert Ukrainian troops from the Donbas...which was their obvious target from the beginning.
And/or they were trying to 'scare' Zelenskyy into leaving/resigning.
The former did not seem to work and the latter obviously did not work.
Frankly, I think the entire advance north and north west of the Donbass by the Russians made little sense.
It gained nothing.
And makes them look weaker and gives the West resolve.
But then?
I do not understand Russia's tactics in this war anyway.
I get why they are trying to take the Donbas.
Their people voted over 85% to leave Ukraine back in 2014.
But all the other advances seem wasteful and costly.
Finally, I said in several posts before the war that Russia would not be able to defeat Ukraine easily.
But I thought they would have more success than what they have had since the first couple of weeks.
Could we/the West have been overestimating, Russia's military capabilities all these years?
Or is Russia not really trying as hard as they can?
Perhaps it is a bit of both.