They retreated because they were defeated.

If they had won, the capital would be theirs, as would be the second largest city too, and everything between them.

They somehow deluded themselves it would be more like the Germans in Austria, or the Warsaw Pact in Czechoslovakia, with some shock and awe fireworks. This would why they sent the Rosgvardia internal troops columns on Kharkiv in riot control trucks as a vanguard, and thought taking Kyiv would be like Kabul 1979. This might be also why the SVR chief was so nervous, he knew it's not going to be like that. It was never supposed to end like it did, and that's the Ukrainian achievement.

They retreated because they were defeated.

If they had won, the capital would be theirs, as would be the second largest city too.

They somehow deluded themselves it would be more like the Germans in Austria, or the Warsaw Pact in Czechoslovakia, with some shock and awe fireworks. This would why they sent the Rosgvardia internal troops columns on Kharkiv in riot control trucks as a vanguard, and thought taking Kyiv would be like Kabul 1979. This might be also why the SVR chief was so nervous, he knew it's not going to be like that. It was never supposed to end like it did, and that's the Ukrainian achievement.