The White troops were under command of Lieutenant-General Nikolai Bredov and consisted of the 5th Cavalry Corps, the 7th Infantry Division and the Combined Guards Brigade with a total strength of approximately 6,000 men.

Despite the common Bolshevik enemy, the attitude of the Great-Russian White Army towards the Ukrainian People's Republic (Petliurists) was rather hostile.

It was stated that : the UPR can be either neutral, then they must immediately surrender their weapons and go home; or join us, recognizing our goals, one of which is a broad autonomy for the regions.

Due to carelessness and because intelligence reported that the White Army would not be able to be in Kiev before 3 September, not all bridges over the Dnieper had been secured.

When the Ukrainian troops marched solemnly in column to the Duma Square, the advanced sections of the volunteers, under the command of N. I. Stakelberg, entered the city over the Chain Bridge.

The commander of the squadron of volunteers, introducing himself to the general, asked permission for his unit to take part in the parade and install a Russian tricolor next to the Ukrainian flag already posted on the Duma.

But when Colonel Volodymyr Salsky of the Zaporizhzhia Corps arrived and saw the Russian tricolor on the Duma, he gave the order to bring that flag down.

22 August] 1919, Petliura gave an order to withdraw the Ukrainian troops even further West, to the Kazatin - Zhitomir line.

Further negotiations were foiled, because of the inflexible goal of the Whites of restoring Unified Indivisible Russia within the pre-war borders.

Such conditions were absolutely unacceptable for the Ukrainian side and it was not possible to create a single anti-Bolshevik front in the South-West of Russia.