Russian forces that unsuccessfully tried to take Kyiv were so confident they would win they brought along outfits to hold a parade in the capital, a Ukrainian military official said Thursday. But they wound up dumping their parade attire when they were forced to retreat, according to Oleksandr Gruzevich, deputy chief of staff of Ukraine’s ground forces. At a briefing early Thursday, Gruzevich said Russian troops had left behind formal military attire in the Kyiv region. “If any of you have been in the liberated cities—Irpen, Bucha, Ivankov, Makarov… you saw how much equipment the enemy left, how much of it was destroyed and how much of it was stupidly abandoned. Along with that we are finding parade uniforms that they left, meaning the enemy planned to enter Kyiv in two days and then march through,” Gruzevich told reporters. “For today we can say that those plans were disrupted and disrupted by the heroic efforts of Ukrainian armed forces and other defense units of Kyiv.” He went on to warn, however, that the capital city still isn’t in the clear, as “it is likely the enemy has not given up the goal of a second attack on Kyiv—there is such a threat.”
