1 Institute for the Study of War & AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 22
Mason Clark, George Barros, Kateryna Stepanenko, and Karolina Hird
April 22, 5:30pm ET
A briefing by the Russian Deputy Commander of the Central Military District on April 22
reiterated standing Russian objectives in eastern and southern Ukraine and did not
announce any new operations. Deputy Commander of the Central Military District Rustam
Minnekaev gave a speech to the annual meeting of the Union of Defense Industries on April 22 that has
been misinterpreted as the announcement of a new Russian campaign.
He stated the primary objective of Russian forces is to capture the entirety of the Donbas
region and southern Ukraine to provide a land bridge to Crimea; as ISW has previously assessed,
Russian forces seek to capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts and retain control of the
Kherson region.
Minnekaev stated that Russian control of southern Ukraine provides Russia a future
capability to conduct an offensive toward Transnistria, rather than announcing an
imminent Russian offensive toward Moldova. Minnekaev said Russian control of southern
Ukraine will provide “another way out to Transnistria,” the illegally Russian-occupied strip of territory
in Moldova, where he falsely claimed ”there are also facts of oppression of the Russian-speaking
population.” We do not read this as a statement of intent to conduct a major offensive operation toward
Moldova. An offensive toward Moldova would likely have been phrased around securing a “land
corridor” [сухопутный коридор] to Moldova, much like the Russian land corridor to Crimea. Even if
Russian forces did seek to resume major offensive operations toward Mykolaiv and on to Odesa, they
are highly unlikely to have the capability to do so.
Key Takeaways
• A briefing by the Deputy Commander of the Central Military District restated the
standing Russian objectives in the current phase of the war: capturing the entirety
of the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts and defending Russian positions in southern
Ukraine against Ukrainian counterattacks.
• Ongoing purges of Russian general officers for failures in Ukraine will likely
further degrade Russian command and control.
• Russian forces seek to starve out the remaining defenders and civilians in
Mariupol’s Azovstal Steel Plant and are unlikely to allow trapped civilians to leave.
• Russian forces conducted localized attacks and reconnoitered Ukrainian positions
south of Izyum and did not make any advances.
• Russian forces secured minor gains in continuing daily attacks on the line of
contact in eastern Ukraine.
• The Kremlin is setting conditions to create proxy republics in Zaporizhia and
Kherson oblasts to cement Russian control over these regions and conscript
Ukrainian manpower.
