https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60916098Russia has announced it will "drastically reduce" military combat operations in two key areas of Ukraine "to boost mutual trust" in peace talks.
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Officials in Washington said they had already seen the Russians draw away from Kyiv, but they were still pounding the capital with air strikes and the US had little confidence that it marked any significant shift or meaningful retreat.
"mutual trust" my ass. Russian forces have been stalled there for a month with and Ukrainians started to counterattack.
The decrease in the intensity of the operation near Chernigov and Kiev began two days ago, today it was presented as a gesture of goodwill on the part of Russia. I think everything is more prosaic - the main goal now is to clean up Mariupol and defeat the troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Donbass. After the defeat of the Ukrainian regular army in the east, Russia will probably take a short pause to force peace negotiations, simultaneously moving on Nikolaevsk and Odessa and threatening to deprive Ukraine of access to the sea. If it is possible to conclude a peace treaty, all nationalist detachments in the West of Ukraine will turn into ordinary terrorist gangs, which in fact they are. If a peace treaty is not signed on terms acceptable to Russia, the operation will continue, but in the West there will be much less loyalty and desire of Russian soldiers to save the lives of civilians. There, the main task will be to save the lives of Russian soldiers to the maximum, so artillery and aviation will work more. This is my vision of the development of the situation as the most likely scenario.