Copyright 2022, Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment
Karolina Hird, Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Angela Howard, and Frederick W.
Kagan
November 26, 3:45pm 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.
The overall pace of operations along the frontline has slowed in recent days due to
deteriorating weather conditions but is likely to increase starting in the next few
weeks as temperatures drop and the ground freezes throughout the theater.
Ukrainian and Russian reporting from critical frontline areas throughout eastern and southern
Ukraine, including Svatove, Bakhmut, and Vuhledar, indicates that operations on both sides are
currently bogged down by heavy rain and resulting heavy mud.
Temperatures are forecasted to
drop throughout Ukraine over the next week, which will likely freeze the ground and expedite the
pace of fighting as mobility increases for both sides. The temperature in areas in Ukraine’s
northeast, such as along the Svatove-Kreminna line, will dip to near-or-below-freezing daily highs
between November 28 and December 4. It will likely take the ground some days of consistent
freezing temperatures to solidify, which means that ground conditions are likely to be set to allow
the pace of operations to increase throughout Ukraine over the course of the weekend of
December 3-4 and into the following week. It is unclear if either side is actively planning or
preparing to resume major offensive or counter-offensive operations at that time, but the
meteorological factors that have been hindering such operations will begin lifting.
Russian officials are continuing efforts to deport children to Russian under the
guise of medical rehabilitation schemes and adoption programs. The Ukrainian
Resistance Center reported on November 26 that the Russian occupation administration in
Luhansk Oblast conducted medical examinations of 15,000 children between the ages of two and
17 and found that 70% of the children (10,500) are in need of “special medical care” that requires
them to be removed to Russia for “treatment.”
The Resistance Center stated that Russian officials
intend these forced deportation schemes to lure children’s families to Russia to collect their
children after the children receive treatments, at which point the Resistance Center assessed
Russian officials will prevent those families from returning home to Ukraine. The Center‘s report
is consistent with ISW’s previous assessment that Russian officials are conducting a deliberate
depopulation campaign in occupied Ukrainian territories.
Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova additionally posted an excerpt
from a documentary film chronicling the story of the children she adopted from Mariupol.
Lvova-
Belova has largely been at the forefront of the concerted Russian effort to remove Ukrainian
children from Ukrainian territory and adopt them into Russian families, which may constitute a
violation of the Geneva Convention as well as a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign.
Lvova-
Belova's documentary is likely meant to lend legitimacy to the ongoing adoption of Ukrainian
children into Russian families, just as the guise of medical necessity is likely intended to justify
mass deportations of Ukrainian children to Russian territory.
Russian officials may be attempting to counterbalance the influence of Wagner
Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin through the promotion of other parallel military
structures. The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on November 26 that
Russian officials appointed a Viktor Yanukovych-linked, pro-Kremlin businessman, Armen
Sarkisyan, as the new administrator for prisons in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine and
that Sarkisyan intends to use the role to create a new “private military company.”
