Its painfully obvious it was all a bluff, it wasnt cover for actions elsewhere.
Russia committed its absolute best troops Day 1 into scaring Kiev into submission. That air assault at Hostomel was 100% gamble based upon thinking the Ukrainians where going to do nothing to stop them. Then they backed it up with a 60km long line of armor/vehicles for a week or two that they ultimately did nothing with because Russia either didnt have the stomach for sieging/assaulting Kiev or never had the capability. Once Ukraine failed to capitulate they turned around and went home and meatgrinder turned on.
Of course they had to use their best units. Otherwise the ukrops would have seen through their trick and sent more forces to reinforce the majority of their forces on the Donbass front.
They turned around and pulled back when the trap was completed and the vast majority of the best ukrop formations were either destroyed or so badly mauled they had to be completely rebuilt using conscripts.
What went wrong here was that the Russians did not expect the amount of civilian resistance they received. They made the mistake of underestimating the number of globalhomo simps in northeastern ukropland.
Another problem was that the retreat was not exactly executed perfectly and loads of pro-Russian civilians were left behind, leading to their slaughter at Bucha by ukrops, who then painted it as a Russian war crime.
Ive seen enough videos of Russians being absolutely annihilated due to sheer retardation to know they have very serious issues with battlefield tactics. They simply throw men and firepower at a objective until they take it.
Heres a fantastic and fairly recent example of this. A platoon worth of Russians being utterly destroyed in idiotic fashion;
I highly doubt the legitimacy of that video. There are some major discrepancies within the video compared to what I have noticed regarding Russian forces.
1. Almost none of the tanks have any sort of identifying mark. I only saw a very faint "Z" on one of the BMPs. Previously, the ukrops have been caught painting the "ZVO" signs on their own destroyed AFVs and trying to sell them as Russian losses. Oryx (bellingcat affiliate) was particularly infamous for doing that and it might be one of the main reasons why he's out of work. He can't play the same trick anymore with so much western gear.
2. No white or red arm/leg bands on the soldiers. The Russians cover themselves with that stuff to prevent friendly fire incidents. But here I cannot see anything, not even the faint hint of red or white on their camo fatigues.
3. Light colored plate carriers. Russian plate carriers are overwhelmingly dark green in almost every video of them I've seen. DPR/LPR are the same as well since they're now supplied by the Russians.
4. The light shade of the uniforms. Russians generally wear the dark green "Woodland" EMR camo pattern in 90% of the videos I have seen, though in certain cases I have seen them wear the lighter "Steppe" EMR camo pattern. ukrop camo on the other hand, is uniformly light to the point I think they are desert camo.
Almost forgot my conclusion.
This is footage of a failed ukrop attack rebranded as a failed Russian attack. It has happened before, it will happen again.
