Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 25
Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, Riley Bailey, Angela Howard, and Frederick W. Kagan
November 25, 9:00pm 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.
Reports of poorly staffed, provisioned, and supplied Russian mobilized personnel are
dividing the Russian information space, exposing the tension between milblogger
mobilization narratives, Wagner Group narratives, and actual Russian efforts to
alleviate morale issues. Mobilized personnel from Serpukhov, Moscow Oblast, claimed on
November 23 that the Russian military command sent them into battle without proper training,
uniforms, or protective gear, leading them to suffer mass casualties. These personnel also claimed that
command only feeds the mobilized personnel once a day despite having enough food to provide more
meals.
A Russian source reported that the Serpukhov mobilized personnel now face a military tribunal
for desertion, but the men later released a second video denying that they are deserters and stating they
are willing to serve on the second and third lines of defense rather than the front line.
Russian milblogger responses split between calling for compassion for the mobilized personnel and
punishment only for leadership, and punishment for the entire unit. A Russian milblogger claimed that
these Russian personnel abandoned their positions in Makiivka, Luhansk Oblast, and left other
members of their unit to be executed when surrendering to Ukrainian forces (an accusation that the
Ukrainian government is investigating).
Some Russian milbloggers, including at least one channel
affiliated with the Wagner Group, sympathized with the Serpukhov personnel and criticized the Russian
training and command issues that led to this situation.
These milbloggers also criticized other Russian
milbloggers who, they say, wrongfully condemned the Serpukhov personnel for Russian military
command, training, and provisioning issues out of their control. One Russian milblogger even claimed
that military personnel do not refuse to fight, but that they do not want to be “cannon fodder.”
Alexander “Sasha” Kots, a milblogger whom Russian President Vladimir Putin recently appointed to
the Russian Human Rights Council, called for objectivity when viewing the video and said he would
raise the issue with Putin in his new position on the Human Rights Council.
However, some
milbloggers still criticized Kots for being too soft on the Serpukhov personnel and called for increasingly
harsh penalties.
The mixed responses from milbloggers with various Kremlin and external affiliations
about ongoing mobilization issues further illustrates the extent of the erosion of Russian morale and
the increase in confusion among the pro-war Russian nationalist community resulting from poorly-
executed mobilization and other force generation efforts.
Russian President Vladimir Putin falsely presented a meeting with 18 hand-picked
women holding influential positions in the Russian political sphere as an open
discussion with the mothers of mobilized personnel on November 25, two days before
Russian Mother’s Day.
Russian media publicized the meeting in an apparent attempt to assuage
discontent from relatives of the mobilized and appeals from genuine mothers’ and wives’ groups.
Putin
used the meeting to pledge to improve conditions for the mobilized, to call on Russians to distrust
unfavorable media reports surrounding mobilization, and to display solidarity with the families of
Russian soldiers.
Meanwhile, the calls of relatives of Russian soldiers have reportedly not received a
response. A Russian news channel posted a video on November 24 in which a Russian woman claims
that authorities will not meet with her even though she has been looking for her soldier son who
disappeared in March.
The Council of Mothers and Wives posted that unidentified individuals began
to surveil their members following their November 21 announcement of a roundtable discussion to
consider the problems facing conscripts.
YouTube channel Moms of Russia posted a video appeal to
Putin in which several mothers asked Putin to prevent the mobilization of their only child.
