It’s likely we will never know the answer, but I will give you one example to illustrate why it can be all of the above (I’ve used this example several times so I don’t have anything new to say here).

During the 1942 winter counteroffensive, the Red Army launched simulataneous operations along two major axes: in the north against the Rzhev salient (Operation Mars) and in the south to encircle the German Sixth Army in Stalingrad (Operation Uranus).

To make extra sure that the Stalingrad axis could succeed, Stalin deliberately leaked the Rzhev counteroffensive plan (Operation Mars) to the Germans (as part of the Operation Monastery espionage), without even informing Zhukov. For Zhukov, it was a genuine operation (and was reportedly very pissed when he learned about the fact later); for Stalin, it was secondary to the success in Stalingrad.

The Germans diverted their troops away from Stalingrad to reinforce Rzhev, leading to the total destruction of Paulus’s Sixth Army in Stalingrad and smashed Hitler’s plan to seize the oil in the Caucasus, which would prove to be highly detrimental to the German logistics down the road.

On the other hand, the Rzhev front was a failure. Is this cope? Would the success in Rzhev have made the outcome better? It could have, but would you trade it for a failure in Stalingrad?

The facts remain: the Germans diverted forces away from Stalingrad, the Sixth Army annihilated and the German southern axis completely halted.

———

Back to the Kyiv offensive from the north, the facts also remain: the Ukrainian armed forces diverted their troops away from the Donetsk front to reinforce the capital city (so any Ukrainian offensive against the Donbass was completely foiled at that point - can you imagine if the Ukrainians had reached Donetsk city? it would have been a nightmare for the Russians, the battles would have been far bloodier and many many more civilians would have been killed), the Russians seized the southern front and established a foothold along Kherson and then moved to liberate Mariupol by May.

So the Kyiv axis could be many things at the same time: to foil a Ukrainian offensive against the Donbass republics, to pressure the Kyiv regime to surrender (and as a bargaining chip to ceasefire agreement as you mentioned), to allow Russian troops to move in from the south relatively unopposed.

Cope or not, it has served its purpose, even in failure.

https://www.mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/MCG-August-2022-1.pdf

It’s on page 90.

Edit: very frustrating, had to switch search engines. Anyone who sees this before I find a link, it was August 22 edition.

I think that when a penname shared by at least 2 USMC generals that advocate for realist interests (in terms of not having illusions about what they do) wrote about it as a example of maneuver warfare and the shifting nature of thrusts and feints, they may be ghouls, but they are the professionals when it comes to war.

It was in the marine corps gazette if you want to read it. It’s solid reading for an overview understanding of modern maneuver warfare as seen by the more competent American generals if nothing else. It’s interesting how they view war opposed to what the hogs get fed.

Edit: forgot to mention that the name used is Marinus.

As for the negotiations part, the timeline fits and we know it was serious enough for Britain’s most dignified man to be sent to bungle it up. I really do think that if the trade journal for high ranking officers took it seriously enough to write about how it worked when everyone else was laughing or coping, there’s weight to that threat.

It was a real attack and a feint. A military feint is different from a feint in boxing. A boxing feint is a fake strike, a military feint is a real attack that's designed to draw enemy forces towards something (and thus away from other places). Russia could have turned the feint into a full assault on Kiev with more forces but they didn't due to both military, political, and diplomatic reasons.

Russia stopped the advance because they didn't have the forces needed to take Kiev. That wasn't related to the negotiations. Putin probably hoped for a repeat of the 2008 Georgian-South Ossetia war. The Russian army reached (but didn't take) the Georgian capital and forced the Georgians to agree to a peace treaty where they stopped attacking the South Ossetians. The same thing could have happened here if the US and Ukrainian government hadn't spent 8 years making sure something like that doesn't happen in Ukraine.

Putin pulled back the forces as a "goodwill gesture" (as he said at the time) and probably as part of negotiations. If he hadn't done so then he probably would have been forced to eventually pull back for military reasons. Russia has been very casualty-averse this whole war and this was before Putin realized he needed more troops than he had available. Reinforcing the Kiev axis of advance would have required taking forces from either the Donbas front or from the southern front. There just wasn't enough troops there to do anything useful and they were taking casualties while not doing anything.

This is like slowing down before crossing the finish line, just doesn't make sense to do imo