Observers are split over Russia’s decision to scale down its forces near Kiev as part of a goodwill trust-building gesture during the latest stage of talks with this former Soviet Republic. They were initially deployed as part of Moscow’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine and immediately prompted plenty of predictions that Russia wanted to seize that country’s capital. No such outcome has been achieved though and the miles-long convoy that’s assembled on its outskirts reportedly hasn’t moved forward in a while. These developments led many to believe that Russia failed to achieve what they thought was one of its most crucial military objectives in this campaign.

Some urgent clarification is in order so as to help others understand what’s really happening right now. It was always nothing more than pure speculation to predict that Russia wanted to capture Kiev. None of those country’s officials ever publicly claimed such a goal, but advancing their forces closer towards the Ukrainian capital split their opponent’s military focus and enabled the Russian Armed Forces (RAF) to make rapid gains elsewhere in the country along its eastern and southern fronts. The bulk of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) and their ethno-fascist militia allies are thought to be concentrated in Donbass, which the Russian Defense Ministry just said is the focus of the conflict’s second phase.

Ukraine’s military infrastructure and that of its related industrial complex have been utter destroyed by the RAF over the past month. The UAF’s divide between defending their positions in Donbass and Kiev led to the loss of large parts of Southern Ukraine. The northern and eastern fronts practically split into two separate ones from the UAF’s perspective since they can’t reliably resupply them with one another’s assets. Russia’s decision to tactically scale down its focus on Kiev simultaneously with doubling down on the Donbass front appears not to have been a hasty move in response to so-called “Ukrainian resistance” like the US-led Western Mainstream Media claims but a preplanned strategic maneuver.

Observers should remember that one of the officially stated goals of the special operation is to liberate the newly recognized Donbass Republics so it therefore follows that this was always a priority for the RAF. Nevertheless, focusing so much on it immediately into the campaign would have possibly resulted in large losses for them as well as unacceptable civilian casualties and collateral damage due to the major concentration of the UAF there. Russia therefore seemed to have decided to dilute their capabilities by distracting the rest of their opponents through their false advance on Kiev, which they never wanted to capture in the first place.

This explains the miles-long convoy that they dispatched en route to the Ukrainian capital in order to ensure that the UAF prioritized defending that city at the expense of reinforcing their positions along the Donbass front. While this was happening, the RAF destroyed Ukraine’s military infrastructure and that of its related industrial complex in order to soften up its opponents’ positions in Donbass by de facto splitting them off from the rest of the country ahead of their preplanned focus on that front during the second ongoing stage of this campaign. Should this have been the strategy all along, then it’s being executed almost flawlessly.

The reason why so many got it so wrong is because one of the cleverest elements of the US-led information warfare against Russia had been to indoctrinate its targeted audience with false expectations about Moscow’s military goals in order to subsequently spin any subsequent development as a so-called “loss”. The reality however is altogether different since it’s actually Kiev that’s experienced major losses along the entire southern front as well as parts of the northern and eastern ones too. That last-mentioned front is now the focus of the second phase of Russia’s special operation and seems bound to fall out of Kiev’s control in the coming future in accordance with Moscow’s official objective.

Going forward, those who sincerely aspire to understand the fast-moving and sometimes unclear military developments associated with Russia’s special operation in Ukraine should always rely on a multitude of sources and use their discretion in assessing which ones are most accurate. Simply listening to Kiev and its Western patrons won’t suffice since those two have an interest in shaping an alternative reality totally disconnected from the actual one. Those who’ve been influenced by them are probably convinced that Russia already lost the conflict since it didn’t capture Kiev even though anyone who’s objectively covered this operation should have known that the Ukrainian capital wasn’t its objective.