Russia withdraws from northern Ukraine, shifts offensive to Donbas

Russia abandons all of northern Ukraine and reorients the war to Donbas

In early April 2022, the map suddenly changed. Russian troops not only retreated from the salient that had advanced from Chernobyl towards Kyiv: they also left the entire Chernihiv region and lifted the siege on Sumy. In a matter of days, the north went from an active front to liberated territory. What remained was an army concentrated in the south, trying to pass off as a maneuver what, on the ground, looks much more like a retreat.

The original plan that never worked

The prevailing hypothesis in the analysis is that the initial design was different. To take Kyiv —the assault on the airport deceived no one—, reinstate a friendly government there, and negotiate the rest of the country as a satellite state from that position. An ambitious objective, perhaps too ambitious. On paper, it sounded like a blitzkrieg; in practice, it required logistics and a pace that the Russian columns could not sustain. The emperor has no clothes, and the world saw it before Moscow did.

When that failed, Plan B remained: withdraw, consolidate the southern corridor and Donbas, and hold on.

How many troops are really on the ground

This is where the official narrative breaks down. Estimates circulating suggested that Russia had deployed about 200,000 ground troops, compared to about 700,000 Ukrainian troops, not counting reservists. The defender's numerical advantage is overwhelming. Added to this is the wear and tear on Russian mechanized units, destroyed beyond expectations, and a growing flow of Western weaponry.

With these figures, the question is not whether Russia could have taken Kyiv, but how it intended to sustain any conquest with so little momentum. The spring mud, moreover, played against the attacker. Lessons from winter that were only given but not learned.

Is it a retreat or a redeployment to Donbas?

Some argue that it is not a flight but a change of axis: abandoning the north to concentrate everything in the east and south, and launching a pincer attack to encircle the Ukrainian army in the Donetsk basin and drive it out of the two eastern provinces. The counterargument weighs heavily: in a retreat, it is precisely when the greatest casualties occur, and abandoned positions are not recovered.

The key geographical point highlighted then was Kherson. Its control determined access to Crimea and the coast. Time, in both senses, favored the one who entrenched themselves.

Bucha, the rabbits, and the war of narratives

The level of discussion dropped when the bodies appeared. In Bucha, around 400 civilians were found dead, and from then on, the conflict ceased to be a strategic discussion and became something else. While some denied the facts, others accepted them as the norm from day one. The truth is that the narrative, on both sides, was cooked slowly.

A curious note even circulated: on Russian channels, the troops began to be called rabbits, for their tendency to run away. Humor as a barometer of sarracena.

What Europe didn't want to see

Beyond the front lines, the invasion exposed Europe's energy dependence. With Brazil, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom sending tanks and long-range artillery, the underlying calculation of who pays the bill —and with what— remained unanswered. There was talk of 4 million refugees out of a population of over 40 million, a figure that seemed low to more than one person.

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To this day, the analysis gets stuck at the same point: whether the withdrawal from the north was the prelude to a major offensive in Donbas or the first act of a failure that Moscow has yet to acknowledge. No one, neither the most optimistic nor the most skeptical, dared to set a date for the outcome then.