1 Institute for the Study of War & AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment
Mason Clark, George Barros, Kateryna Stepanenko, and Karolina Hird
April 18, 6:30pm ET
Russian forces began a new phase of large-scale offensive operations in eastern Ukraine
on April 18 likely intended to capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
Russian forces have been concentrating reinforcements—including both newly-deployed units and
damaged units withdrawn from northeastern Ukraine—to the Donbas axis for several weeks. Russian
forces conducted large-scale assaults focused on Rubizhne, Popasna, and Marinka with heavy artillery
support on April 18 after previously conducting only localized attacks and shelling along the line of
contact. Russian forces have not secured any major territorial gains as of publication.
The Russian offensive in the east is unlikely to be dramatically more successful than
previous Russian offensives, but Russian forces may be able to wear down Ukrainian
defenders or achieve limited gains. Russian forces did not take the operational pause that was
likely necessary to reconstitute and properly integrate damaged units withdrawn from northeastern
Ukraine into operations in eastern Ukraine. As we have assessed previously, Russian forces withdrawn
from around Kyiv and going back to fight in Donbas have, at best, been patched up and filled out with
soldiers from other damaged units, and the Russian military has few, if any, cohesive units not
previously deployed to Ukraine to funnel into new operations.
Frequent reports of disastrously low
Russian morale and continuing logistics challenges indicate the effective combat power of Russian units
in eastern Ukraine is a fraction of their on-paper strength in numbers of battalion tactical groups
(BTGs). Russian forces may certainly be able to wear down Ukrainian positions in eastern Ukraine
through the heavy concentration of firepower and sheer weight of numbers, but likely at a high cost. A
sudden and dramatic Russian offensive success remains highly unlikely, however, and Ukrainian
tactical losses would not spell the end of the campaign in eastern Ukraine, much less the war as a whole.
Key Takeaways
• Russian forces likely began large-scale offensive operations in Donetsk and
Luhansk oblasts focused on Rubizhne, Popasna, and Marinka.
• Russian forces may be able to gain ground through the heavy concentration of
artillery and numbers. However, Russian operations are unlikely to be
dramatically more successful than previous major offensives around Kyiv. The
Russian military is unlikely to have addressed the root causes—poor coordination,
the inability to conduct cross-country operations, and low morale—that impeded
prior offensives.
• Successful Ukrainian counterattacks southeast of Kharkiv will likely force Russian
forces to divert some units intended for the Izyum offensive, but Ukrainian forces
are unlikely to completely sever Russian lines of communication north of Izyum in
the coming days.
• Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol continued to hold out against heavy Russian
artillery and air bombardment.
