The present sta­tus of Vladimir Putin’s war of aggres­sion in Ukraine is very flu­id, vio­lent, and fre­quent­ly star­tling. NPI will try to err on the side of cau­tion when evi­dence behind claims or state­ments are lacking.

The begin­ning of the cur­rent month of April saw the Russ­ian mil­i­tary begin­ning to with­draw in earnest all mil­i­tary forces, using artillery fire to pro­tect their retreat, from their salient north­west of Kyiv.

Map by Nathan Ruser. Dis­claimer: This map and the infor­ma­tion below is informed by reli­able and ver­i­fied open sources, it is meant to con­vey the gen­er­al dis­po­si­tion of Russ­ian troops in Ukraine and should not be con­sid­ered con­firmed nor comprehensive. 

By April 3rd, they began to with­draw from their siege of Cherni­hiv and by April 6th all Russ­ian forces had with­drawn com­plete­ly from the Kyiv, Cherni­hiv and Sumy oblasts.

While con­cur­rent­ly the Rus­sians were solid­i­fy­ing their holds between just out­side of Kher­son and north by north­east of the south­ern­most reach­es of the Dnipro Riv­er near Kryvyi Rih and Osoko­riv­ka, the focus of the war large­ly turned toward the Don­bas region and the Rus­sians’ inten­si­fied attempts to turn the flanks of the pri­ma­ry Ukrain­ian defens­es there.

The Rus­sians main­tained pres­sure on Kharkiv to the north­west of the Lunan­sk and Donet­sk oblasts of the Don­bas region, pri­mar­i­ly through artillery but also with mis­siles and airstrikes.

A dam­aged Russ­ian mil­i­tary col­umn report­ed­ly from Rus­si­a’s 201st Mil­i­tary Base in Tajik­istan (Pho­to: Ukrain­ian Gen­er­al Staff)

Russ­ian units pre­vi­ous­ly in the north of Ukraine have been large­ly trans­ferred toward Izium with­in the Khark­hov oblast; Izium was ful­ly secured by the Rus­sians around April 5th.

Some ana­lysts expect the thrust to be a north­ern pin­cer of encir­clement toward key cities with­in the Ukrain­ian por­tion of the Don­bas, Slovyn­sk and Kram­a­torsk, but oth­ers thought that they might make a dash for the city of Dnipro, some 230 to 340 kilo­me­ters south by south­west, depend­ing on the route taken.

A sec­ond axis for the Don­bas has been south­west toward Sievierodonet­sk and Lsy­chan­sk, again like­ly toward Slovyn­sk and Kram­a­torsk, while a third has been attempt­ing to advance north­west from Donet­sk, most­ly toward Adi­iv­ka and Pisky, with the even­tu­al goal either the south­ern pin­cer of an encir­clement or a sec­ond dash toward Dnipro, over 260 kilo­me­ters to the northwest.

Mar­i­upol is still hold­ing out against Russ­ian resis­tance, though for how long is any­one’s guess. Although details are scarce, appar­ent­ly the Ukraini­ans had been, until recent­ly dis­cov­ered by the Rus­sians, send­ing heli­copters in to remove the wound­ed and pro­vide muni­tions and sup­plies to the defenders.

Russ­ian cru­el­ty to Ukrain­ian non­com­bat­ants became clear­er with the with­draw­al of their forces from the north­west of Kyiv, espe­cial­ly with­in the town of Bucha, but it is also appar­ent that a mobile cre­ma­to­ri­um has been in use through­out the siege of Mar­i­upol, with an empha­sis on elim­i­nat­ing evi­dence of dead civil­ians and liv­ing non­com­bat­ant observers of war crimes with­in the city.

Over four hun­dred thou­sand Ukraini­ans have alleged­ly been forced to leave their homes and enter Rus­sia, although it should also be not­ed that no one is sure if that num­ber includes around six­ty thou­sand Ukraini­ans liv­ing in the Russ­ian-occu­pied por­tion of the Don­bas that left or were forced out of the area just as the war began.  Of that num­ber, at least one hun­dred thou­sand have been moved to the Russ­ian Far East or to the Cau­ca­sus region.

As of now, over four and a half mil­lion peo­ple have fled Ukraine, and depend­ing on the source, between over sev­en and ten and a half mil­lion peo­ple with­in Ukraine are inter­nal­ly displaced.

Rus­si­a’s many set­backs have not deterred its dic­ta­tor Vladimir Putin, who made it clear yes­ter­day dur­ing an appear­ance with Belaru­sian Pres­i­dent Alexan­der Lukashenko at the Vos­tochny Cos­mod­rome that he is com­mit­ted to wag­ing his mur­der­ous war of aggres­sion no mat­ter the cost.

Putin repeat­ed­ly employed the defense mech­a­nism of pro­jec­tion as he sought to jus­ti­fy his pos­ture. For instance, he remarked: “That Blitzkrieg on which our foes were count­ing did not work.” By that, he meant the sanc­tions adopt­ed by the Unit­ed States and the Euro­pean Union. But “blitzkrieg” is a mil­i­tary term of art that means “an over­whelm­ing all-out attack, espe­cial­ly a swift ground attack using armored units and air sup­port.” It was Putin who count­ed on a light­ning war strat­e­gy to top­ple the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment and over­run Kyiv.

That gam­bit has now failed and Putin is chang­ing up his strat­e­gy and tactics.

The effec­tive­ness and poten­cy of eco­nom­ic and finan­cial sanc­tions as a response to regimes like Putin’s has been long debat­ed. There is evi­dence that sanc­tions pack some­what more of a punch over time as opposed to in the short term. That’s what makes Putin’s ref­er­ence to “blitzkrieg” all the more ridiculous.

Rus­si­a’s for­mer Deputy For­eign Min­is­ter Andrei Fedorov, a for­mer Krem­lin offi­cial, says Putin is absolute­ly deter­mined to bring down Ukraine’s cur­rent gov­ern­ment and remove Volodymyr Zelen­sky from office, whether by force or otherwise.

“He will con­tin­ue until he reach­es the goal,” Fedorov said in an appear­ance on DW, com­ment­ing that he has known Vladimir Putin for many years. “And the goal is to change, frankly speak­ing, change the regime in Ukraine.”