1 Institute for the Study of War & The Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 25
Kateryna Stepanenko, Karolina Hird, Frederick W.
Kagan, and George Barros
May 25, 7:15 pm ET
Some pro-Russian milbloggers on Telegram continued to criticize the Kremlin for appalling
treatment of forcefully mobilized Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR)
servicemen–contradicting Russian information campaigns about progress of the Russian special
military operation. Former Russian Federal Security Service officer Igor Girkin (also known by the alias Igor
Strelkov) amplified a critique to his 360,000 followers from a smaller milblogger discussing a video wherein a
DNR battalion appealed to DNR Head Denis Pushilin about maltreatment of forcefully mobilized forces.
1
The
milblogger blamed Russian leadership, not Pushilin, for beginning the invasion with insufficient reserves and
unprepared, forcefully mobilized forces. The milblogger added that Russia did not provide the soldiers of its
proxy republics with new weapons, despite claiming that Ukrainian forces prepared to attack occupied Donbas
areas for a year prior to Russian invasion. The milblogger also claimed that the Kremlin failed to mobilize and
adequately prepare the next batch of reserves, while Ukrainian forces are successfully preparing their troops for
counteroffensives. Girkin also criticized the Kremlin for failing to pay the DNR battalion for three months. Some
milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces staged the video, but the video still gathered attention of pro-Russian
Telegram users.
2
The incident highlights a continuing shift in the Russian-language milblogger information space regardless of
the video’s authenticity. Milbloggers would likely have either attacked or dismissed such a video loudly and in
near-unison earlier in the war, when they all generally focused on presenting optimistic pro-Russian and anti-
Ukrainian narratives. The response to this video in the Russian-language milblogger space demonstrates the
strong resonance anti-Kremlin narratives can now have. It is impossible to know what effect this change in this
information space might have on general perceptions of the war in Russia, but it is one of the most visible and
noteworthy inflections in the attitudes of previously strongly pro-Kremlin ostensibly independent Russian voices
speaking to Russians that we have yet seen.
Today’s statement by DNR Militia Head Eduard Basurin explaining that Russian forces would focus on creating
“smaller cauldrons” rather than on a single large encirclement is likely in part a response to a critique that
surfaced both in the milblogger space and in the Russian Duma that Russian forces had failed to form and reduce
“cauldrons” of the sort they used in 2014.
3
Basurin’s statement, along with other changes in the ways in which
Russian officials have spoken about cauldrons and Russian operations in the east following those critiques
suggest that the Russian and proxy leadership is sensitive to shifts in this information space.
4
Russian forces are increasingly facing a deficiency in high-precision weaponry. The Ukrainian
General Staff reported that due to an increasing lack of high-precision weapons Russian forces are seeking other
methods of striking critical infrastructure and have intensified the use of aircraft to support offensives.
5
The
Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) noted that up to 60% of Russia’s high-precision stockpile has
already been exhausted, which is consistent with previous reports by Western defense officials that Russian
forces have been increasingly relying on “dumb bombs” because they are facing challenges replenishing their
supplies of precision munitions in part due to sanctions targeting Russia’s defense-industrial production.
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A lack
of high-precision weapons will likely result in an increase in indiscriminate attacks on critical and civilian
infrastructure.
The Kremlin is attempting to expand the pool of Russian passport-holders in occupied areas.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on May 25 that will simplify the procedure for obtaining a
Russian passport within Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts.
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This renewed campaign of so-called ”mass
