1 Institute for the Study of War & AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment
Frederick W. Kagan, Kateryna Stepanenko, and Karolina Hird
April 26, 6:30 pm ET
Russian forces have adopted a sounder pattern of operational movement in eastern
Ukraine, at least along the line from Izyum to Rubizhne. Russian troops are pushing
down multiple roughly parallel roads within supporting distance of one another,
allowing them to bring more combat power to bear than their previous practice had
supported. Russian troops on this line are making better progress than any other Russian advances
in this phase of the war. They are pushing from Izyum southwest toward Barvinkove and southeast
toward Slovyansk. They are also pushing several columns west and south of Rubizhne, likely intending
to encircle it and complete its capture. The Russian advances even in this area are proceeding
methodically rather than rapidly, however, and it is not clear how far they will be able to drive or
whether they will be able to encircle Ukrainian forces in large numbers.
Russian forces on the Izyum axis likely benefit from the absence of prepared Ukrainian
defensive positions against attacks from the Kharkiv direction toward Donbas. Ukraine
has prepared to defend the line of contact with Russian-occupied Donbas since 2014, and Russian
troops continue to struggle to penetrate those prepared defenses—as shown by repeated Russian efforts
to take Avdiivka, just north of Donetsk City, or to advance through Popasna, just beyond the original
line of contact.
Russian troops continued to attack Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol, including in the
Azovstal Plant, despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims that there is no more
fighting in the city. Ukrainian forces likely still hold important positions beyond the plant itself, and
Russian forces continue to fight outside the plant, bomb the plant, and assault positions near the plant.
Putin’s order not to chase Ukrainian defenders into the tunnels and catacombs of the facility evidently
did not preclude continued efforts to secure at least the entire perimeter of the plant and likely also the
important M14 highway that runs along it to the north and northwest.
Russia is staging false-flag attacks in Transnistria, Moldova, likely setting conditions for
further actions on that front. The two motorized rifle battalions Russia has illegally maintained in
Transnistria since the end of the Cold War are not likely sufficient to mount a credible attack on Odesa
by themselves, nor are the Russians likely to be able to reinforce them enough to allow them to do so.
They could support more limited attacks to the northwest of Odesa, possibly causing panic and creating
psychological effects to benefit Russian operations in the south of Ukraine.
Russia may also seek to destabilize Moldova itself, however. Comments by the head of the
Donetsk People’s Republic and other Russian officials and proxies raise the possibility that Putin might
recognize the self-styled Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR) in Transnistria as he recognized
the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. The PMR could then ask for additional Russian
protection, and Putin could attempt to send some additional forces or capabilities to Transnistria. Any
such activities would greatly raise tensions and fears in Moldova and neighboring Romania, putting
additional pressure on NATO, possibly giving Putin a cheap “win,” and distracting from Russia’s slog
in eastern Ukraine.
Continued indications that Russian forces intend to hold referenda to establish “people’s republics” in
occupied areas of southern Ukraine raise the possibility that Putin intends to unveil an array of new
“independent” “people’s republics” as part of a Victory Day celebration. The forecast cone is wide, and
