Having firmly predicted for the past month that Moscow would not invade Ukraine, I am today eating a double helping of “hat”. My reasons for coming to that conclusion – that an invasion would cause great self-harm to Vladimir Putin and to the Russian economy, the deaths of some thousands of young Russian men, the frank illegality of an attack, the prospect of a long violent occupation which will kill many thousands more Russians, and the re-unification of Nato’s members under the pressure – all hold good today, and we are seeing all of them play out in plain sight. Even Finland is now muttering about applying to join Nato.

So, why did Putin order an invasion? The general answer to that in both Kyiv and Western capitals is that his mind, corrupted by power and resentment against the West, has lost touch with reality. Watching him speak a couple of days ago I did not see a man whose mind was unhinged, or even especially angry. I saw a man who was clearly under great pressure (he was even physically slumped in his chair, and sighing more than usual), and that is what I would expect to see in a man who has just issued an order that he knows will kill thousands of people. I also saw a man who knows that the West’s response (personal sanctions against the 50 or so richest and most influential Russians in Moscow) will undermine his own personal power base. If a revolution takes place in Moscow it will not come from the people beating down the gates of the Kremlin, but silently and in the night, from the Siloviki and the oligarchs agreeing that a different leader would serve their interests better.

So, why the monumental act of self-harm?

Before addressing that question, I think we need to take a close look at how the invasion is progressing.

A month ago I wrote a piece analysing the shape and timing of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. My thesis was that step 1 of an invasion would be the neutralisation of the Ukraine air force. That prediction was correct: right at the start of the war Russia fired some 100 Kaliber cruise missiles at Ukrainian air bases and civilian airfields. These were precisely aimed, at fuel depots and aircraft dispersal areas. Kyiv is tight on the results, but we have seen few UAF aircraft in the air in the tide of video reportage that has emerged since February 24.

In one case a Kaliber missed its target, at Chuhuiv air base near Kharkov. Whether the missile was incorrectly targeted, or malfunctioned, or was damaged by defensive fire, or was actually targeted at civilians we do not know, but we do know from footage released by Anadolu Agency that it impacted in the open area between three apartment blocks located approximately 1.5 km east of the airfield, where it blew in the windows of all the surrounding apartments. The hit has provided an early key meme of the war – a Ukrainian lady cut on one side of her face by flying glass and crudely bandaged by first aiders.

More Kalibers were fired at Ukraine’s main naval base at Ochakiv, north-west of Crimea, leaving Ukraine’s small and ineffective navy in flames.

Russian missile attacks on Borispyl airport east of Kyiv provided the war’s first major detonations for the media’s consumption – three or four in number, but replayed endlessly over the past four days as if each replay was a new attack.

My second conclusion was that in an invasion, even one with air superiority, attacking forces would win ground at about 30km per day. Today, after three days of fighting, Russian forces advancing from Crimea have taken the Antonov bridge at Kherson, about 90 km from their starting positions. Forces moving north-east from Crimea towards Mariupol have also advanced about 90 km, as have forces advancing south from Belarus towards Kyiv, as have forces moving south from the LDNR towards Mariupol. The exception is found in forces advancing towards Kharkov, which appear to have slowed to invest and even penetrate the city.

I was right to conclude that Moscow would thrust north and west from Crimea to seize the Antonovsky Bridge, but wrong when I concluded that the main attack would move south-east parallel to the Dnepr River. With Belarus in full co-operation Moscow chose to advance on the west bank of the Dnepr straight towards Kyiv, and to push outwards on a broad front from the LDNR. That choice has a benefit and penalty. The benefit is that the LDNR push pins and holds a large number of Ukraine’s best and most experienced troops on that front line. The penalty is that an advance on five fronts dilutes the force of the thrust, which is why the LDNR and Kharkov fronts have moved much less than 90km.

The final thrust, west towards and past Sumy, is also moving at 30km per day. Approached in a broad line from the east, the Dnepr River is 200-250 km from the Russian border, which a normal advance would cover in less than 10 days.

The effect of force dilution will not be news to Russia’s general staff, which suggests that there is a strategy behind the dilution of forces. What might that be?

We may be able to see its skeleton emerging inside the events as reported. With Kyiv under threat, nearly the whole attention and resources of the Western mainstream media is focused on the capital. Here an objective analysis of the fighting can only conclude that it is an order of magnitude less intense and less violent than we would expect.

Reporters and video teams have struggled to find evidence of a high-intensity attack. As examples of this, a CNN team recorded a group of 10 soldiers (described as Russian, but who knows) hanging around the perimeter fence of the Antonov plant and airfield as “a major Russian airborne assault”. A few minutes later the same team filmed three of these men firing at an unseen target in the street, and reported the sixteen shots fired as “an intense firefight”.

The video reportage contains a film of four troop-carrying helicopters flying low overhead, presented again as a major airborne assault on Antonov. No-one seems to point out that a heavy helicopter can only deliver some 10 men plus supplies of ammunition at a time, and that forty men do not amount to a major assault. The clip, replayed repeatedly as if there were repeated waves of airborne assaults, is so far the only reportage that I have seen of any airborne activity. It was, in addition, impossible to tell whether these were Russian machines or Ukrainian (both sides use much of the same equipment) and whether the clip was recent or recycled from another exercise a long time ago.

Video reportage of strikes repeats the same handful of events, as if each was a new strike or a new event. It would in fact be possible to assemble only approximately 40 filmed strikes, explosions, damaged buildings and (one) damaged radar ground station from five fronts over three days of fighting. The truth is that the war close to news-gathering teams is not intense.

Looking at reporting on the ground in Kyiv it is hard to escape the thought that if Moscow is attacking Kyiv, it is using what looks very much like a token effort. Token or not, the advance to Kyiv has completely occupied the attention of nearly all MSM news gatherers, leaving activity elsewhere in Ukraine relatively un-covered.

Relatively, but not completely. One news team, an Al Jazeera team led by the excellent Charles Stratford, is operating around Kherson and Mariupol, where the assault is running at the expected 30km per day. Here we see ample evidence of intense ground fighting, with a large number of vehicles either moving or burning.

Mariupol is significant not for its geography but for the fact that it is the area in which Ukraine’s Azov Battalion (in reality more the size of a Brigade, with around 3,000 men) is based.

When Mr Putin declared his objectives for the assault on Ukraine he specified two aims – the de-militarisation of Ukraine, and its de-nazification. The latter objective was immediately derided by the MSM and by Western leaders, who pointed out quite correctly that the great majority of Ukrainians are normal liberal democrats and that Ukraine’s president is actually Jewish. However, neither the Western leaders nor the mainstream media have given any attention or airtime to the nature of the Azov Battalion and of Right Sector and the beliefs and views of their members and supporters (narrated here a couple of months ago).

It seems likely to me that when Mr Putin refers to de-nazification he is talking about the destruction of the Liquidation of Ukraine’s armed neo-Nazis would simply be a step along the way. It seems reasonable to speculate that a rational plan would include termination of the invasion by negotiation in short order and of their 3,000-4,000 members. I doubt that Russia’s plans include an attempt to capture and re-educate those members. If my doubts are good then the alternative is that Moscow wishes to destroy Azov and Right Sector in a “take no prisoners” cataclysm of lethal violence. That aim would be consistent with what we can see – namely an unexpected thrust south out of the LDNR towards Mariupol (to pin and hold Azov in place and prevent its redeployment north), a thrust north and east out of Crimea towards Mariupol, to place Azov between two fires, the appearance of two brigades of Chechen infantry on the battlefield from Crimea, not known for their delicacy, and the distraction of MSM attention from Mariupol towards Kyiv.

It would also be consistent with the fact that Charles Stratford and his team have been actively prevented at gunpoint from moving about in South Ukraine. Additional corroboration can be found in a Russian report from 16:00 on Saturday that the Azov Battalion is firing Grad Multiple Launch Rocket Systems at (disputed) targets near Mariupol. Grad is a terrifying weapon used only in high-intensity conflict against concentrated enemy formations, and its use suggests that there is some high-intensity fighting going on out of sight of the MSM.

If Mr Putin does indeed have a rational plan (and my vote is that he does) then it must have a rational end-point. Liquidation of Ukraine’s armed neo-Nazis would simply be a step along the way. It seems reasonable to speculate that a rational plan would include termination of the invasion by negotiation in short order. What corroborating evidence is there for that theory?

Well, in order to bring President Zelenskiy to the negotiating table several steps and conditions would be necessary.

The first step would be to persuade him finally that Nato is not coming to help. That persuasion is certainly required – on Wednesday Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany was reportedly still actively, even desperately, pressing Berlin to bring Ukraine into Nato. If there was any doubt in Mr Zelenskiy’s mind on Wednesday, there cannot be any today. Tick.

The second step would be to generate a general acceptance in both Ukraine and the West that Kyiv will fall once Russian troops stop pulling their punches. Notwithstanding the brave distribution of Kalashnikovs and Molotov cocktails in Kyiv over the past two days I doubt that there is anyone on either side who truly believes that a citizens’ militia can stop an armoured assault on the city supported by air superiority.

The third step would be to keep Ukrainian casualties to the lowest level possible consistent with the steps one and two. The more Ukrainians that die the harder would it be for Mr Zelenskiy to agree a peace deal. In this context it is more informative to think about what Russian forces are NOT doing than about what they ARE doing. Even with effective air control Moscow is NOT:

• Bombing logistic flows from rear areas to the contact lines
• Cutting power and water supplies to Kyiv
• Destroying civil infrastructure (power, water, roads, bridges)
• Attacking civilians (video reportage shows civilians moving unharmed alongside and amongst Russian columns, and filming them with impunity)
• Attacking political institutions and politicians
• Attacking homes or offices (notwithstanding a small number of hits, probably in error)
• Cutting rail links to Europe
• Wholesale destruction of Ukrainian artillery units on the Donbas Line of Contact
• Sinking merchant shipping (though there are a handful of reports of blockading activity)
• Fighting its way into Kyiv’s urban areas where civilians would die in large numbers
• Using Russia’s complete air superiority and massive airborne strike power to kill Ukrainian soldiers wholesale on all five fronts.

Kyiv is reporting today that Ukraine has suffered 200 dead so far. If we deduct the 15 men reported to have been killed on Snake Island, the 15 who died in an air crash, the (likely) 100 men killed in their ships at Ochakiv, and the probably couple of dozen killed by Kaliber strikes on Ukraine’s airfields, we are left with only about 40 dead across all five battle fronts. What we are appearing to see is the application of just enough pressure to convince Mr Zelenskiy that defeat is inevitable (brave words apart), while leaving space for a deal.

The fourth step would be to invite Mr Zelenskiy to sit down and talk about a peace deal. That invitation was issued yesterday, and as I write this a Russian delegation is sitting in Gomel in Belarus ready to talk. Mr Zelenskiy stated in public that he was ready for negotiations, including discussions of the de-militarisation of Ukraine. However he has also announced that he will not hold those talks in Belarus. Given the fact that Mr Putin tore up international law by starting the invasion it seems to me entirely reasonable for Mr Zelenskiy to distrust an offer of safe conduct to and from Belarus, but the Russian invitation does tend to corroborate my thesis that there is a plan in hand, and that this is it.

Additional (slight) corroboration can be found in the terminology that Mr Putin has used to announce and describe the Russian invasion – describing it consistently as “a special operation”, a phrase repeated with great emphasis by RT. That may just be an attempt at face-saving on the part of a war criminal, or it might be a deliberate signal to those who will listen that there is an objective here that does not include the occupation of Ukraine.

If the talks continue (either Helsinki or Ankara would serve as relatively neutral and safe places to meet) perhaps we will see the next phase of Russia’s plan play out to a deal on neutrality and de-arming, and the end of the war.

An alternative interpretation of the state of the war is that the fighting power of Russia’s armed forces has been massively over-estimated and that Ukraine has fought Russia to a standstill outside Kyiv. Russian progress in southern and eastern Ukraine does not bear that out, but it still remains a possibility. It is not one I would bet my hat on.