Institute for the Study of War &
The Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment
Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, George Barros, Madison Williams, Layne
Philipson, and Frederick W. Kagan
December 22, 7 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 President Vladimir Putin continues to refuse to treat Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky as an equal and sovereign counterpart, further indicating that
Putin is not interested in serious negotiations with Ukraine. Putin did not react to
Zelensky’s remarks to the United States Congress in Washington, DC on December 22, but instead
oriented his December 22 press conference on US and Western influence over Ukraine.
Putin
reiterated his boilerplate and false claims that the US and Western countries have intervened in
Ukraine since the Soviet Union, driving a wedge in the supposed Russian-Ukrainian historic and
cultural unity. Such statements are meant to suggest that Ukraine’s 1991 emergence as a sovereign
state was a sham. Putin also restated Russia’s maximalist goal of “protecting” the Ukrainian
people from their government, implying that Russia intends to force the Kyiv government to
capitulate. Putin mentioned Ukraine as a state only to note falsely that Ukraine had barred itself
from negotiating with Russia.
Putin’s rhetoric is a part of an ongoing Russian information operation that denies
Ukraine’s legitimacy as a sovereign state. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that
Zelensky’s speech to the US Congress and the US transfer to Ukraine of the Patriot air-defense
systems only “proves” that the United States is fighting a proxy war in Ukraine, and that there are
no signs of readiness for peace talks.
Putin also implied that Russia had hoped that the West
would coach Ukraine into abiding by the Minsk Agreements but instead was fooled by Kyiv. Such
framing aims to disqualify Ukraine from future direct negotiations under the false premises that
Ukraine violated the Minsk Agreements and that Kyiv is not an independent actor. Putin‘s and
Peskov’s framing are components of an effort to persuade the United States and NATO to bypass
Ukraine and negotiate directly with Russia over Zelensky’s head. This effort is very unlikely to
succeed given repeated statements by US and European leaders regarding their determination
that Ukraine will decide its own course. The Kremlin’s information operation is also likely meant
to focus blame for ”protracting” the war on Zelensky’s supposed intransigeance and thereby wear
down US and European willingness to continue supporting Ukrainian efforts to liberate occupied
Ukrainian land.
Putin amplified another existing Russian information operation designed to
decrease Western security assistance for Ukraine. Putin falsely accused the United States
of protracting the war in Ukraine by providing Patriot air defense systems and vaguely implied
that these systems will not perform a defensive purpose.
Putin has been setting conditions for a
protracted war long before the US decision to transfer Patriots to Ukraine, even stating on
December 7 that the “special military operation“ would be a lengthy process.
The Kremlin has
also long falsely framed any Western security assistance to Ukraine as an escalation.
The Patriot
system will instead augment Ukraine’s ability to protect critical civilian infrastructure against
Russia’s air and missile campaign, which is designed to inflict suffering on Ukraine’s civilian
population. Patriot systems will interfere with Putin’s ability to hammer Ukraine into
surrendering on his terms, which may be what Putin has in mind when he says that it protracts
the war.
