Russian advance toward Kyiv still slow and haphazard

 Institute for the Study of War:

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The Russian military has continued its unsuccessful attempts to encircle Kyiv and capture Kharkiv. The Russians continued to attack piecemeal, committing a few battalion tactical groups at a time rather than concentrating overwhelming force to achieve decisive effects. Russian commanders appear to prefer opening up new lines of advance for regiment-sized operations but have been unable to achieve meaningful synergies between efforts along different axes toward the same objectives. They have also continued conducting operations in southern Ukraine along three diverging axes rather than concentrating on one or attempting mutually supporting efforts. These failures of basic operational art—long a strong suit of the Soviet military and heavily studied at Russian military academies—remain inexplicable as does the Russian military’s failure to gain air superiority or at least to ground the Ukrainian Air Force. The Russian conventional military continues to underperform badly, although it may still wear down and defeat the conventional Ukrainian military by sheer force of numbers and brutality.  Initial indications that Russia is mobilizing reinforcements from as far away as the Pacific Ocean are concerning in this respect. Those indications also suggest, however, that the Russian General Staff has concluded that the forces it initially concentrated for the invasion of Ukraine will be insufficient to achieve Moscow’s military objectives.

Operations to envelop Kyiv remain Russia’s main effort. Russian troops are also continuing three supporting efforts, one to seize Kharkiv, one to take Mariupol and secure the “land bridge” connecting Rostov-on-Don to Crimea, and one to secure Kherson and set conditions for a drive west toward Mykolayiv and Odesa.

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The Russians are also cracking down on internal dissent: 

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The Kremlin increased legal penalties for spreading what the Kremlin claims is false information about Russia’s war in Ukraine, forced key liberal Russian media outlets offline, and limited domestic access to non-Russian-controlled social media on March 3. A Russian State Duma (Parliament) Committee approved an amendment to Russia’s existing law against spreading false information about the Armed Forces on March 3 to imprison any person “spreading fakes” about the Russian military and its operations for 10 to 15 years.[1] State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin called for Russia to adopt a law criminalizing false information about the Russian Armed Forces and to combat disinformation campaigns allegedly targeting Russia on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube on March 3.[2] Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova baselessly alleged that the BBC has undermined Russia’s domestic security; Russia may attempt to ban BBC coverage in Russia to retaliate for the EU‘s ban of the Russian state-run RT and Sputnik.[3] The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office stated that outlets promoting “supposedly peaceful anti-war actions” are banned in Russia due to their “connections with extremist activities” on March 3.[4] The Prosecutor General’s Office also announced it will begin investigations on allegedly extremist platforms and their calls for Russian citizens to protest Russian actions in Ukraine on March 3.[5]

The Kremlin is increasingly limiting Russia’s domestic information space to include only Kremlin propaganda. The board of Russia’s last liberal, publicly broadcast radio station, Echo Moskvy, closed the radio station on March 3 to avoid prosecution.[6] Russian censoring body Roskomnadzor previously forced Echo Moskvy off the air on March 1, falsely claiming the station promoted extremist activities and published false information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[7] Roskomnadzor also demanded that Google block “false information” YouTube ads targeting Russia and remove the “foreign” media outlet Dozhd’s online TV channel for promoting disinformation on March 3.[8] Dozhd General Director Natalia Sindeeva announced on March 3 that Dozhd will “temporarily stop” its operations but assured that the channel plans to return to the air.[9]
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There has been an unusual number of demonstrations against the war and mass arrests.  This appears to be happening spontaneously and not with any outside influences. As mentioned in an earlier post there also appears to be moral problems for many of the troops engaged in the war.  It should be noted that Russia has yet to achieve air superiority in Ukraine.

See, also:

Russians haven’t advanced much toward Kyiv in ‘two to three days,' Pentagon says