According to the Russian Satellite News Agency, on the day of the Ukrainian government's negotiations with Russia earlier this month, the Russian military slowed down the offensive for a while. Russian and Ukrainian representatives met in Belarus, but the negotiations were as expected to be very difficult; Russia demanded that the Ukrainian army lay down its arms and accept the conditions of "de-Nazirification" and "de-militarization", and recognized that the Crimean Peninsula belonged to Russia, while Ukraine insisted that the Russian side withdraw its troops and did not recognize the return of Crimea between Ukraine and Eastern Ukraine.
Two days ago, after the failure of the first round of negotiations, the Russian side immediately resumed its offensive and did not wait for zelenskiy's government to continue to "negotiate the conditions". Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that they had recognized that the Ukrainian government was delaying time according to U.S. instructions, so the Russian army must act immediately until it reached its set goal, while U.S. Satellite photographed a Russian convoy of more than 60 kilometers outside Kiev moving forward, proving that russia's second round of offensive was far more fierce than before. The Russians now had four fronts: the siege of Kiev in the north, the Kharkov front in the northeast, the Odessa Front in the south, and the Luhansk-Donetsk front in the east (where independent armed forces fought in coordination with the Russians).
Yesterday, there were reports from the Russian front that they had conquered Kherson (ukraine claimed not to have occupied all of them) and zaporizhia in less than two days after the start of the offensive, and advanced all the way to the coastal city of Mariupol; on the same day, the armed forces of the "Donetsk Republic" in the east announced that they and the Luhansk forces had completed the blockade of Mariupol and were about to start the offensive. The capture of Mariupol meant that russia's eastern and southern offensive forces met for the first time in the battle, and the territory of Ukraine was officially "penetrated". The speed of the attack was very unexpected, and the resistance of the Ukrainian army was also very tenacious, and in the fierce battle, the commander of the northern group, General Krasilenikov, the commander of the 53rd Brigade, Tydenko, was killed, and the commander of the army group, Sodor, was seriously wounded and rescued.
The BBC report mentioned that not only the offensive in the east and south, but also in the north and northeast of Russia is also "unprecedented" fierce. Yesterday, Russia and Ukraine launched an artillery battle around Kharkov in one day, in which at least 21 people were killed and 112 were injured in the artillery battle; and Russia carried out a large-scale airborne operation in a key area of Kharkiv, the police station building was blown up, and the two sides were still fighting for positions; the Kiev city area is currently only fighting on the periphery, but a shell blew up a significant part of the TV tower.
It is also worth mentioning that Ukraine's large cities are mainly distributed in the border and coastal areas, and the hinterland has few "competitive resources" and military defenses, and if Russia completes the encirclement of the northern front and the eastern front, ukraine's resistance situation will be very difficult. What is certain at the moment is that Zelenskiy has not given up on continuing the "tug-of-war" with Russia, but has mobilized various defensive forces, local troops and militias to further complicate the situation.