1 Institute for the Study of War & The Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 31
Kateryna Stepanenko, Karolina Hird, and Frederick W. Kagan
May 31, 5:45pm ET
Moscow’s concentration on seizing Severodonetsk and Donbas generally continues to
create vulnerabilities for Russia in Ukraine’s vital Kherson Oblast, where Ukrainian
counter-offensives continue. Kherson is critical terrain because it is the only area of Ukraine in
which Russian forces hold ground on the west bank of the Dnipro River. If Russia is able to retain a
strong lodgment in Kherson when fighting stops it will be in a very strong position from which to launch
a future invasion. If Ukraine regains Kherson, on the other hand, Ukraine will be in a much stronger
position to defend itself against future Russian attack. This strategic calculus should in principle lead
Russia to allocate sufficient combat power to hold Kherson. But Russian President Vladimir Putin has
chosen instead to concentrate all the forces and resources that can be scraped together in a desperate
and bloody push to seize areas of eastern Ukraine that will give him largely symbolic gains. Continuing
successful Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kherson indicate that Ukraine’s commanders recognize
these realities and are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities that Putin’s decisions have created.
The Ukrainian leadership has apparently wisely avoided matching Putin’s mistaken
prioritization. Kyiv could have committed more reserves and resources to the defense of
Severodonetsk, and its failure to do so has drawn criticism.
1
Ukrainian forces are now apparently
withdrawing from Severodonetsk rather than fighting to the end—a factor that has allowed the Russians
to move into the city relatively rapidly after beginning their full-scale assault.
2
Both the decision to
avoid committing more resources to saving Severodonetsk and the decision to withdraw from it were
strategically sound, however painful. Ukraine must husband its more limited resources and focus on
regaining critical terrain rather than on defending ground whose control will not determine the
outcome of the war or the conditions for the renewal of war.
Sound Ukrainian prioritization of counter-offensive and defensive operations pushed
the Russians almost out of artillery range of Kharkiv City and have stopped the Russian
advances from Izyum—both of which are more important accomplishments than the
defense of Severodonetsk. Ukraine’s leadership has had to make incredibly difficult choices in this
war and has generally made the right ones, at least at the level of strategic prioritization and in the pace,
scale, and ambitiousness of its counter-offensives. That is why Ukraine still has a good chance
to stop and then reverse the gains Russia is currently making.
Russian forces are likely attempting to exploit Belarusian equipment reserves to
compensate for heavy material losses in Ukraine. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on May
31 that Belarusian forces are moving tanks and infantry fighting vehicles from storage facilities in
Belarus to Russia to replenish combat losses.
3
This report corroborates previous reporting that Russian
forces have largely exhausted their own reserves and indicates that the Kremlin is still leveraging its
influence over Belarus in order to use Belarusian equipment.
Some pro-Russian milbloggers began to capture the frustrating realities of limited
warfare, which may further intensify societal tensions in Russia. Pro-Russian political figure
and self-proclaimed “People’s Governor of Donetsk Oblast” Pavel Gubarev said that the limited
mobilization of Russians for war has divided Russian society into two groups: a small proportion that
