JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russia pulls back from battered Kyiv region in major shift of war to east” – Washington Post
“Five weeks after Russian troops hurtled into the country in the hope of swiftly seizing the capital, installing a friendly government and subjugating Ukraine, the Russian military appears to be shrinking its goals to prioritize the east, redeploying forces that had been destined for the Kyiv region and attempting to organize reinforcements to compensate for the thousands of troops that have been killed. The move represents a new and substantially different phase of the war as Russia withdraws its troops from battered northern and western areas to focus eastward, where it has already wreaked massive destruction and deprivation, most notably in the city of Mariupol, where as many as 100,000 people remained trapped in grim conditions. …”