1 Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 19
Karolina Hird, Katherine Lawlor, Mason Clark, and Frederick W. Kagan
September 19, 9 pm ET
Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is
updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Urgent discussion on September 19 among Russia’s proxies of the need for Russia to
immediately annex Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts (much of the latter of which is not
under Russian control) suggests that Ukraine’s ongoing northern counter-offensive is
panicking proxy forces and some Kremlin decision-makers. The legislatures of Russia’s
proxies in occupied Ukraine, the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR), each
called on their leadership to “immediately” hold a referendum on recognizing the DNR and LNR as
Russian subjects.[1] Russian propagandist and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan spoke
glowingly of the call, referring to it as the “Crimean scenario.” She wrote that by recognizing occupied
Ukrainian land as Russian territory, Russia could more easily threaten NATO with retaliatory strikes
for Ukrainian counterattacks, “untying Russia’s hands in all respects.”[2]
This approach is incoherent. Russian forces do not control all of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
Annexing the claimed territories of the DNR and LNR would, therefore, have Russia annex oblasts
that would be by Kremlin definition partially “occupied” by legitimate Ukrainian authorities and
advancing Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian strikes into Russian-annexed Crimea clearly demonstrate that
Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s illegally annexed territory do not automatically trigger Russian
retaliation against NATO, as Simonyan would have her readers believe. Partial annexation at this
stage would also place the Kremlin in the strange position of demanding that Ukrainian
forces un-occupy “Russian” territory, and the humiliating position of being unable to
enforce that demand. It remains very unclear that Russian President Vladimir Putin
would be willing to place himself in such a bind for the dubious benefit of making it
easier to threaten NATO or Ukraine with escalation he remains highly unlikely to
conduct at this stage.
Russian leadership may be running out of ways to try to stop Ukrainian forces as they advance across
the Oskil River in Luhansk Oblast. The Kremlin may believe that partial annexation could drive
recruitment of additional forces, both from within Russia and from within newly annexed Ukrainian
territory. Russian forces are desperately attempting to mobilize additional forces from all potential
sources to backfill their heavily degraded and demoralized units but have proven unable to generate
significant combat power, as ISW has repeatedly written.[3]
This latest annexation discussion also omits other parts of Russian-occupied southern Ukraine in
which the Kremlin was previously planning sham annexation referenda. A willingness to abandon the
promise to bring all the occupied areas into Russia at the same time would be a significant retreat for
Putin to make in the eyes of the hardline pro-war groups he appears to be courting. It remains to be
seen if he is willing to compromise himself internally in such a fashion. The Kremlin’s proxies in
Donbas regularly outpace Kremlin messaging, on the other hand, and may have done so again as they
scramble to retain their occupied territory in the face of Ukraine’s successful and ongoing counter-
offensive.
Recent Ukrainian counter-offensive successes are further reducing the already poor
morale among Russian units that had been considered elite before February
