Again, everything you are saying is completely devoid of reality and the exactly opposite of what the Minoborony and army themselves have stated. Are you Putin himself? Are you telling me you know more then the Russian Ministry of Defense?

“Our nameless communist newspapers”? Ok? That’s the best source you have?

I was in the Gomel Oblast visiting family as the assault itself was underway. A terrible place to be in light of the war, but guess who you got to meet a lot of in a Belarusian border city? Soldiers on leave. Guess what were the things they discussed and the gruesome details they shared? Yes they had seized ground, but they were never supposed to meaningfully hold it, only draw Ukrainian units away from the front line, and they could not sustain their losses or hold their positions with their current supply lines and unit strength, so they were pulling back to redeploy to Donetsk. They were never supposed to achieve “victory” in Kiev.

Guess what that’s identical to? The Russian MOD outline for why the drive in Kiev was planned! Who would have thought?

But I’m sorry Marshal Zhukov. You know best, and you are a military genius when it comes to this.