1 Institute for the Study of War & The Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 26, 2022
Mason Clark, George Barros, and Katya Stepanenko
February 26, 3pm EST
Russian forces’ main axes of advance in the last 24 hours focused on Kyiv, northeastern Ukraine,
and southern Ukraine. Russian airborne and special forces troops are engaged in urban warfare in
northwestern Kyiv, but Russian mechanized forces are not yet in the capital. Russian forces from Crimea have
changed their primary axes of advance from a presumed drive toward Odesa to focus on pushing north toward
Zaporizhie and the southeastern bend of the Dnipro River and east along the Azov Sea coast toward Mariupol.
These advances risk cutting off the large concentrations of Ukrainian forces still defending the former line of
contact between unoccupied Ukraine and occupied Donbas. Ukrainian leaders may soon face the painful
decision of ordering the withdrawal of those forces and the ceding of more of eastern Ukraine or
allowing much of Ukraine’s uncommitted conventional combat power to be encircled and
destroyed. There are no indications as yet of whether the Ukrainian government is considering this decision
point.
Ukrainian resistance remains remarkably effective and Russian operations especially on the Kyiv axis have been
poorly coordinated and executed, leading to significant Russian failures on that axis and at Kharkiv. Russian
forces remain much larger and more capable than Ukraine’s conventional military, however, and Russian
advances in southern Ukraine may threaten to unhinge the defense of Kyiv and northeastern Ukraine if they
continue unchecked.
Key Takeaways:
• Russia has failed to encircle and isolate Kyiv with the combination of mechanized and
airborne attacks as it had clearly planned to do. Russian forces are now engaging in more
straightforward mechanized drives into the capital along a narrow front along the west
bank of the Dnipro River and toward Kyiv from a broad front to the northeast.
• Russian forces have temporarily abandoned failed efforts to seize Chernihiv and Kharkiv
to the northeast and east of Kyiv and are bypassing those cities to continue their drive on
Kyiv. Russian attacks against both cities appear to have been poorly designed and
executed and to have encountered more determined and effective Ukrainian resistance
than they expected.
• Russian movements in eastern Ukraine remain primarily focused on pinning the large
concentration of Ukrainian conventional forces arrayed along the former line of contact
in the east, likely to prevent them from interfering with Russian drives on Kyiv and to
facilitate their encirclement and destruction.
• Russian forces coming north from Crimea halted their drive westward toward Odesa, and
Ukrainian forces have retaken the critical city of Kherson. Some Russian troops remain
west of the Dnipro River and are advancing on Mikolayiv, but the main axes of advance
have shifted to the north and east toward Zaporizhie and Mariupol respectively.
