1 Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment
Kateryna Stepanenko, Layne Philipson, Karolina Hird, and Frederick W.
Kagan
July 31 8:30 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.
Russian forces have resumed localized ground attacks northwest and
southwest of Izyum and may be setting conditions for offensive operations
further west into Kharkiv Oblast or toward Kharkiv City. Russian forces have
already launched unsuccessful assaults and reconnaissance-in-force attempts on Chepil,
Shchurivka, and Husarivka (northwest of Izyum) and resumed assaults on Dmytrivka and
Brazhikivka (southwest of Izyum) in recent days.
Russian forces maintained positions
around Balaklia and Velyka Komyshuvakha for months and may use these two areas as
springboards for an offensive operation. Russian forces may use their positions around
Balaklia to restart assaults on Kharkiv City from the southeast. Russian forces are
extremely unlikely to seize Kharkiv Oblast or capture Kharkiv City – the second most
populated city in Ukraine – given the pace of Russian progress in Donbas and continued
challenges in force generation and logistics. ISW has previously assessed that Russian
President Vladimir Putin may have ordered Russian forces to take Kharkiv City and the
unoccupied portion of Kharkiv Oblast but that he is unlikely to be successful in such goals.
Russian forces may also be conducting spoiling attacks to prevent Ukrainian
counteroffensives.
Crimean occupation officials obliquely accused Ukraine of orchestrating a
drone attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters in occupied
Sevastopol on July 31, but Ukrainian officials denied responsibility for the
attack.
Russian Governor of Sevastopol Mihail Razvozhaev claimed that Ukrainians
“decided to spoil” Russia’s Navy Day celebrations and noted that a drone exploded in the
headquarters’ yard but did not specify whether Ukrainian forces or locals launched the
drone.
Razvozhaev published images showcasing minor damage to the headquarters
building and yard, and social media footage depicted a small cloud of smoke rising from
the building.
Razvozhaev also claimed that the explosion wounded six people. Russian
Crimean Senator Olga Kovitidi later announced that unspecified actors carried out the
attack with a makeshift drone from within the territory of Sevastopol.
The Ukrainian
Naval Forces and Odesa Oblast Military Administration Spokesman Serhiy Bratchuk
indirectly suggested that the drone attack was a Russian false flag operation.
ISW cannot
independently verify the actor responsible for the attack.
The Russian government may be complicating international efforts to discern
the nature of an unidentified July 28 kinetic event on the Olenivka penal
colony. The Russian Ministry of Defense officially invited experts from the United
Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to investigate the attack
at the Olenivka prison on July 30.
The ICRC stated that it has not received access to the
prison as of July 31, however.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereschuk also
noted that Russian authorities have not responded to Ukrainian requests to return the
bodies of deceased Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs).
Open-source intelligence (OSINT) analyst Oliver Alexander published an examination of
satellite imagery from July 27 showing open graves at the Olenivka prison, noting that July
