1 Institute for the Study of War & AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment
Kateryna Stepanenko, Karolina Hird, Mason Clark, and George Barros
June 8, 6:30 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 are escalating the use of psychological and information operations to
damage the morale of Ukrainian soldiers. The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR)
reported on June 8 that Russian forces are sending threatening messages to the personal devices of
Ukrainian servicemen calling on them to betray their service oaths, lay down their arms, surrender, or
defect to Russia.
The GUR reported that Russian forces are sending messages on a variety of platforms
including SMS, Telegram, Viber, Signal, and WhatsApp and that the messages use location information
to threaten to harm Ukrainian soldiers or their family members. Ukrainian military expert Dmytro
Snegirov additionally noted that Russian propagandists are conducting informational and
psychological campaigns to spoil the morale of Ukrainian troops by disseminating information that the
battle for Severodonetsk will become the “next Mariupol.”
These information and psychological attacks
likely seek to lower the morale of Ukrainian servicemen as operations on multiple axes of advance
continue to generate high causalities on both the Ukrainian and Russian sides.
Russian military commanders continue to face force generation challenges. The Ukrainian
Southern Operational Command reported that Russian military enlistment offices in Crimea are
falsifying the results of mandatory medical exams administered during the summer conscription period
to maximize the number of recruits.
Russian police also arrested a man who threw a molotov cocktail
and set fire to a local Crimean administration building in protest of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
likely indicating growing discontent with Russian war efforts in Crimea.
ISW has previously reported
that forced mobilization in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR) is
exacerbating social tensions and sparking protests in Donbas.
The Ukrainian General Staff also
reported that unspecified elements of the 106th and 76th Guards Airborne Assault Divisions refused to
participate in combat in Luhansk Oblast and returned to Russia. The 76th Guards Airborne Assault
Division previously participated in assaults on Kyiv, Izyum, and Popasna, which has likely led to the
demoralization of troops.
Key Takeaways
• Russian forces continued assaults against Ukrainian positions in Severodonetsk.
Russian forces simultaneously seek to outflank Ukrainian positions in the region
to avoid the necessity of making an opposed crossing of the Siversky Donets river.
• Russian forces are continuing operations around Sviatohirsk and west of Lyman
to link up with operations southeast of Izyum and drive on Slovyansk.
• Russian forces are intensifying their operations in northwestern Kherson Oblast
in response to recent Ukrainian counterattacks.
• Russian forces in Zaporizhia Oblast are focusing ground and artillery attacks near
the Zaporizhia-Donetsk Oblast border and likely are seeking to strengthen control
of the highway between Vasylivka-Orikhiv and Huliapole to support operations in
northeast Zaporizhia.
• Russian-backed occupation authorities are attempting to set conditions for the
political integration of occupied areas into the Russian Federation but are likely
acting independently and in an incoherent manner due to the lack of a unifying
occupation authority.
