It’s not a “retreat"

The Kremlin says it’s pulling back some of its troops around the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv as cease-fire talks in Turkey appear to yield some progress. Those developments, however, came as Ukrainian officials warn Vladimir Putin is simply looking to cut his losses after a month-long invasion that failed to take a major city and reportedly cost him thousands of dead soldiers. After largely destroying some of those cities while killing hundreds if not thousands of civilians, the announced “de-escalation” is being seen in some quarters as merely a tactic as Putin consolidates gains in the east and tries to establish a land corridor with Ukraine’s occupied Crimean peninsula.

NATO officials appear to view Moscow’s statements warily (Russia repeatedly promised before the war that it had no intention of attacking Ukraine). Markets reacted well to the news, a response that at least one observer found problematic. “I think there was very serious misunderstanding of what both sides said in Istanbul after the talks,” said Evgeny Minchenko, a Moscow-based political consultant. “So far I just heard is that there will be less action near Kyiv and Chernihiv, because the Russian army is concentrating its resources against the Ukrainian army in Donbas.”

If Russia’s goal is to take all of the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk provinces as a prerequisite to ending its attack, that would translate into Ukraine losing a big chunk of its internationally recognized territory. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said however that Putin’s goals stretch well beyond eastern Ukraine. Nobody should “be fooling ourselves” over suggestions from Moscow that it would reduce attacks around Kyiv or withdraw forces in the area. The Pentagon, Kirby said, isn’t ready to call it a withdrawal or even a “retreat.” —David E. Rovella

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