The good news is that Russia is sending all sorts of signals that their intent is now to focus on the Donbass and Eastern Ukraine. They seem to be pulling back from their attack on Kyiv. That is positive and dovetails nicely with peace talks scheduled to take place in Turkey.

The Questions on Ukraine
General (ret.) Walsh raised two questions on peace talks and the purported Russian pullback yesterday:

Have the casualties reached a point where Ukraine is willing to sacrifice this region now, when they weren't willing to before the war? Since the Ukrainians are holding them at bay, that will be a difficult decision for Zelensky. Furthermore, the pretext that the Eastern part of Ukraine would welcome Russia has proven to be false, and one can only believe that many in the East want even less to do with Russia, now than they did before?

Is Russia just executing a better battle plan? Virtually every member of Academy's Geopolitical Intelligence Group questioned how Russia carried out the initial assault (too few troops, too many points of attack, multiple extended supply chains, etc.). So is there a risk that Putin is biding his time, to take this region, secure his footing, and then resume pushing West?