1 Institute for the Study of War & AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 2
Mason Clark, George Barros, and Karolina Hird
April 2, 5:00 pm ET
Continuing Russian operations along their new main effort in eastern Ukraine made
little progress on April 2, and Russian forces likely require some time to redeploy and
integrate reinforcements from other axes. Ukrainian forces repelled likely large-scale Russian
assaults in Donbas on April 2 and inflicted heavy casualties. Russian forces continued to capture
territory in central Mariupol and will likely capture the city in the coming days. Russian units around
Kyiv and in northeastern Ukraine continued to successfully withdraw into Belarus and Russia, and
heavy mining in previously Russian-occupied areas is forcing Ukrainian forces to conduct slow clearing
operations.
However, the Russian units withdrawn from northeastern Ukraine for redeployment to eastern Ukraine
are heavily damaged. Russian forces likely require an extensive operational pause to refit existing units
in Donbas, refit and redeploy reinforcements from other axes, and integrate these forces—pulled from
several military districts that have not yet operated on a single axis—into a cohesive fighting force. We
have observed no indicators of Russian plans to carry out such a pause, and Russian forces will likely
fail to break through Ukrainian defenses if they continue to steadily funnel already damaged units into
fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Key Takeaways
• Russian forces continued to capture territory in central Mariupol on April 2 and
will likely capture the city within days.
• Ukrainian forces repelled several possibly large-scale Russian assaults in Donbas,
claiming to destroy almost 70 Russian vehicles.
• Russian forces will likely require a lengthy operational pause to integrate
reinforcements into existing force structures in eastern Ukraine and enable
successful operations but appear unlikely to do so and will continue to bleed their
forces in ineffective daily attacks.
• Russian forces in Izyum conducted an operational pause after successfully
capturing the city on April 1 and will likely resume offensive operations to link up
with Russian forces in Donbas in the coming days.
• Russia continued to withdraw forces from the Kyiv axis into Belarus and Russia.
Ukrainian forces primarily conducted operations to sweep and clear previously
Russian-occupied territory.
• Ukrainian forces likely repelled limited Russian attacks in Kherson Oblast.
• The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces have rendered two-
thirds of the 75 Russian Battalion Tactical Groups it assesses have fought in
Ukraine either temporarily or permanently combat ineffective.
