![](https://www.usnews.com/dims4/USNEWS/017a733/2147483647/thumbnail/970x647/quality/85/?url=http://media.beam.usnews.com/77/64/2d17f0cc4d1c8ba6e5f7e6bc651f/ap22087543041451.jpg)
Russian troops have begun retreating from positions around the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv as a part of a “major strategy shift,” a senior U.S. commander for operations in the region said Tuesday, as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war plan continues to suffer from surprising resistance and poor execution.
Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, commander of U.S. European Command, was asked Tuesday morning during a congressional hearing about developing media reports that Moscow had begun withdrawing some of its troops stationed around the capital city and other points in northern Ukraine to focus instead on targets elsewhere.
“I can verify that the comments you made with respect to the shifting dynamics on the ground domain in the vicinity of Kyiv are exactly what we see from a EUCOM perspective,” Wolters told the Senate Armed Services Committee following questioning from Sen. Roger Wicker, Mississippi Republican.
CNN first reported the Russian shift, citing two unnamed U.S. officials, who also indicated that Russia planned to cover its retreat with air and artillery bombardments of the capital.
Russia has escalated bombing and artillery fire of civilian centers in recent weeks. Western officials see the move as a result of Russia’s month-old campaign to seize control of the former Soviet state that devolved almost immediately from supposed lightning warfare into bogged-down, poorly led and ill-supplied offensive lines. Moscow’s supply of precision weapons also appears to be dwindling, with Putin choosing instead to use more indiscriminate weapons.
The Russian offensive over the last few days has focused instead on contested territory in Ukraine’s southeast, including the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where a Moscow-backed separatist war has simmered for eight years, as well as brutal shelling of the strategic port city of Mariupol, a critical component of Ukraine’s ability to access the outside world.
U.S. officials believe Russia’s latest moves are driven by an attempt to consolidate a failed ground campaign and to improve its bargaining leverage for ongoing negotiations with Ukrainian officials in Istanbul. Controlling eastern Ukraine and the area around Mariupol would also help Russia secure a land bridge to the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed in 2014.
Western intelligence reported on Monday that Putin had deployed Wagner Group mercenaries – a prolific component of Russia’s influence campaigns globally – to eastern Ukraine in an attempt to break the burgeoning stalemate there. The move risks undermining Russian operations elsewhere, including in Africa and Syria.