Even this is misleading. It shows a lot more territory gained and lost in the first months in 2022 than was actually the case. They have counted territory that the Russians simply drove through and never occupied on their way to Kiev as "Russian gains" so they could brag about retaking it all when Russia simply pulled out when the Kiev operation no longer had a purpose.
In reality the most you could count as occupied by Russia in northern Ukraine at the start of the conflict were small strips of territory along the main roads. They didn't even really enter most localities, and those they did they just passed through. This is the problem with relying on those maps you saw circulate online at the start of the conflict. They were either purposely misleading or did not understand what was really happening.
I lean toward the latter explanation as i think that Russia intended to give the impression of holding more than they actually did. Most people don't understand with what a small amount of forces they started this. They went in with at most 80,000 troops all spread out over an incredibly large area, because their intention was not to take and occupy territory but to cause enough of a shock to get Kiev to come to the negotiating table.
It was only after the negotiations failed due to western intervention that they changed their approach toward the one we see today of a war of attrition. They never had the ability to hold as much as they were giving the impression of having taken with the forces they had at the time, nor did they need to do so for the new strategy that they switched to, hence why it made sense to abandon what was an unnecessary dead weight in the new phase of the conflict.
Even this is misleading. It shows a lot more territory gained and lost in the first months in 2022 than was actually the case. They have counted territory that the Russians simply drove through and never occupied on their way to Kiev as "Russian gains" so they could brag about retaking it all when Russia simply pulled out when the Kiev operation no longer had a purpose.
In reality the most you could count as occupied by Russia in northern Ukraine at the start of the conflict were small strips of territory along the main roads. They didn't even really enter most localities, and those they did they just passed through. This is the problem with relying on those maps you saw circulate online at the start of the conflict. They were either purposely misleading or did not understand what was really happening.
I lean toward the latter explanation as i think that Russia intended to give the impression of holding more than they actually did. Most people don't understand with what a small amount of forces they started this. They went in with at most 80,000 troops all spread out over an incredibly large area, because their intention was not to take and occupy territory but to cause enough of a shock to get Kiev to come to the negotiating table.
It was only after the negotiations failed due to western intervention that they changed their approach toward the one we see today of a war of attrition. They never had the ability to hold as much as they were giving the impression of having taken with the forces they had at the time, nor did they need to do so for the new strategy that they switched to, hence why it made sense to abandon what was an unnecessary dead weight in the new phase of the conflict.