1 Institute for the Study of War & The Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 25
Karolina Hird, Kateryna Stepanenko, Katherine Lawlor,
Layne Philipson, and Frederick W. Kagan
July 25, 8:00pm 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 made marginal territorial gains south of Bakhmut on July 25 but are
largely suffering from the same fundamental limitations that previously prevented them
from rapidly gaining substantial ground during offensive operations in Luhansk Oblast.
Geolocated social media footage from July 25 shows that troops of the Wagner Group Private Military
Company (PMC) have advanced into Novoluhanske and Russian and Ukrainian sources noted that
Russian forces are taking control of the territory of the Vuhledar Power Plant on the northern edge of
Novoluhanske, likely as a result of a controlled Ukrainian withdrawal from the area.
1
Russian Telegram channels began reporting on Russian attempts to advance on Novoluhanske as early
as May 25, which means that Russian troops have been unsuccessfully attacking this single location for
two months.
2
Novoluhanske is neither a large settlement nor is it characterized by particularly
challenging terrain, yet Russian forces have impaled themselves on it for weeks.
The capture of Novoluhanske and the Vuhledar Power Plant will not generate an advantageous salient
along which Russian troops will be able to advance northwards towards Bakhmut. The Russian
campaign to seize the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk area benefitted from the fact that they had already
created a salient with those two cities near its apex. They were able continually to press on the flanks of
Ukrainian defensive positions until they had secured Severodonetsk. They struggled after that to take
advantage of the fact that Lysychansk remained at the apex of a salient until they managed to break out
from Popasna to the south and drive northward. Siversk is currently the town closest to the apex of the
remaining salient, and Russian forces have struggled to advance against it. The Russian seizure of
Novoluhanske and the Vuhledar Power Plant, on the other hand, flattens the Ukrainian defensive line
rather than perpetuating a salient, thereby limiting the advantage the occupation of those areas gives
to the Russian forces.
The operations around Novoluhanske indicate that Russian forces are suffering the same limitations in
terms of their ability to effectively use battlefield geometry (such as the creation of effective salients) to
their advantage, which is exacerbated by the extreme difficulty Russian forces regularly have capturing
small and relatively insignificant bits of terrain over weeks or months of fighting. These limitations will
grow as Russian units continually degrade themselves during assaults on small villages. Russian forces
are unlikely to be able to effectively leverage the capture of Novoluhanske to take Bakhmut, and the
continual tactical and operational limitations they are facing on the battlefield will likely contribute to
the culmination of the offensive in Donbas before capturing Bakhmut, Slovyansk, or any other major
city in Donetsk Oblast.
