1 Institute for the Study of War & AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 29
Kateryna Stepanenko, Grace Mappes, Angela Howard, Layne Philipson, and Frederick
W. Kagan
August 29, 10:15 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.
Ukrainian military officials announced the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in
Kherson Oblast on August 29. Ukrainian officials reported that Ukrainian forces have broken
through the first line of defenses in unspecified areas of Kherson Oblast and are seeking to take
advantage of the disruption of Russian ground lines of communication caused by Ukrainian HIMARS
strikes over many weeks.
Ukrainian officials did not confirm liberating any settlements, but some
Russian milbloggers and unnamed sources speaking with Western outlets stated that Ukrainian forces
liberated several settlements west and northwest of Kherson City, near the Ukrainian bridgehead over
the Inhulets River, and south of the Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border.
The Russian Defense
Ministry (MoD), Russian proxies, and some Russian milbloggers denounced the Ukrainian
announcement of the counteroffensive as “propaganda.”
Many Russian milbloggers nevertheless reported a wide variety of Ukrainian attacks
along the entire line of contact, and the information space will likely become confused
for a time due to panic among Russian sources.
Russian outlets have also vaguely mentioned
evacuations of civilians from Kherson Oblast, but then noted that occupation authorities in Kherson
Oblast are calling on residents to seek shelter rather than flee.
ISW will report on the Ukrainian
counteroffensive in a new section below.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi
announced that the IAEA mission to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) left
for the plant on August 29. Grossi specified that he is leading the mission but neither he nor the
IAEA specified a timeline for the investigation.
Russian sources continue to make claims likely intended to manipulate public opinion
and the IAEA investigation. Several Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces shelled
Enerhodar and shared photos allegedly showing the location where Ukrainian forces struck a nuclear
fuel storage site on the territory of the ZNPP on August 29.
Ukrainian sources reported continued
Russian shelling of Enerhodar near the ZNPP.
Russian sources claimed on August 29 that Ukrainian
forces fired on the Khmelnitsky Nuclear Power Plant deep in western Ukraine and far from the front
lines; Ukrainian authorities denied these claims.
Russian authorities also alleged that several IAEA
members from the current mission will remain at ZNPP permanently, but ISW cannot confirm these
reports at this time.
Satellite imagery from August 29 provided by Maxar Technologies shows Russian
combat vehicles apparently sheltering under ZNPP infrastructure very close to a reactor
vessel.
