Institute for the Study of War &
The Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 30
Karolina Hird, Riley Bailey, Madison Williams, Yekaterina Klepanchuk, and Frederick
W. Kagan
November 30, 8:00 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 efforts around Bakhmut indicate that Russian forces have fundamentally failed
to learn from previous high-casualty campaigns concentrated on objectives of limited
operational or strategic significance. Russian forces have continually expended combat strength
on small settlements around Bakhmut since the end of May; in the following six months, they have only
secured gains on the order of a few kilometers at a time.
As ISW has previously observed, Russian
efforts to advance on Bakhmut have resulted in the continued attrition of Russian manpower and
equipment, pinning troops on relatively insignificant settlements for weeks and months at a time.
This
pattern of operations closely resembles the previous Russian effort to take Severodonetsk and
Lysychansk earlier in the war. As ISW assessed throughout June and July of this year, Ukrainian forces
essentially allowed Russian troops to concentrate efforts on Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, two cities
near the Luhansk Oblast border of limited operational and strategic significance, in order to capitalize
on the continued degradation of Russian manpower and equipment over the course of months of
grinding combat.
Russian troops eventually captured Lysychansk and Severodonetsk and reached the
Luhansk Oblast border, but that tactical success translated to negligible operational benefit as the
Russian offensive in the east then culminated. Russian efforts in this area have remained largely stalled
along the lines that they reached in early July. Even if Russian troops continue to advance
toward and within Bakhmut, and even if they force a controlled Ukrainian withdrawal
from the city (as was the case in Lysychansk), Bakhmut itself offers them little
operational benefit. The costs associated with six months of brutal, grinding, and
attrition-based combat around Bakhmut far outweigh any operational advantage that
the Russians can obtain from taking Bakhmut. Russian offensives around Bakhmut, on
the other hand, are consuming a significant proportion of Russia’s available combat
power, potentially facilitating continued Ukrainian counteroffensives elsewhere.
Russian state nuclear power company Rosatom stated that the former chief engineer of
the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) has become the new director of the ZNPP.
Rosatom advisor Renat Karchaa announced on November 30 that Yuriy Chernichuk has become the
new ZNPP director and the first deputy general director of the Joint Stock Company “Operating
Organization of the ZNPP,” which is the entity that Rosatom formed on October 3 to essentially replace
Ukrainian company Energoatom as the plant’s operator and to oversee the “safe operation” of the ZNPP
and manage personnel activities within the plant.
Karchaa also noted that the entire management
company of the ZNPP is formed of existing members of ZNPP staff who have signed a new employment
contract.
Rosatom‘s direct role in appointing and overseeing ZNPP management is consistent with
previous efforts to install and maintain Russian control of the ZNPP in a way that is likely intended to
force the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to de facto accept Russian claims over the plant
by interacting with Russian-controlled ZNPP staff.
The Kremlin continues efforts to stifle domestic dissent through legislation that
broadens the definition of “foreign agents” and those amenable to foreign influence.
