Has Putin finally handed over control to his generals?

Russia has signalled that, a month into a war that it expected to take a few days, it would begin scaling back its military activities around the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Moscow’s deputy defence minister, Alexander Fomin, said that the move was designed to increase mutual trust between Russia and Ukraine.

The real reason, if indeed the claim proves to have any veracity, is more likely that Vladimir Putin’s military has taken a pounding around Kyiv, leaving village high streets strewn with burned-out Russian tanks and dead soldiers.

Fomin said that Russia ‘would dramatically reduce military activities in the directions of Kyiv and Chernihiv.’ Chernihiv is one of several major cities under siege by their forces. The announcement follows a declaration last week that Moscow was now entering ‘a new phase’ of the war in which it would concentrate its efforts on the Donbas.

Any such move is almost certain to include a continued attempt to overrun Mariupol, the 440,000-strong southern city that has been the scene of some of the heaviest fighting and civilian casualties of the war.