Institute for the Study of War &
AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment
Kateryna Stepanenko, George Barros, Riley Bailey, Katherine Lawlor, and
Frederick W. Kagan
October 28, 8:30 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 not making significant progress around Bakhmut, Donetsk
Oblast or anywhere else along the front lines. A Russian information operation is
advancing the narrative that Russian forces are making significant progress in Bakhmut, likely to
improve morale among Russian forces and possibly to improve the personal standing of Wagner
Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose forces are largely responsible for the minimal gains in
the area. Russian forces have made limited advances towards the Ukrainian strongpoint in
Bakhmut but at a very slow speed and at great cost. Prigozhin acknowledged the slow pace of
Wagner Group ground operations around Bakhmut on October 23 and stated that Wagner forces
advance only 100-200m per day, which he absurdly claimed was a normal rate for modern
advances.
Ukrainian forces recaptured a concrete factory on the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut
around October 24.
Ukrainian military officials stated on October 16 that Russian forces had
falsely claimed to have captured several towns near Bakhmut within the past several days, but
Ukrainian forces held their lines against those Russian attacks.
Russian forces are likely falsifying
claims of advances in the Bakhmut area to portray themselves as making gains in at least one
sector amid continuing losses in northeast and southern Ukraine. Even the claimed rate of
advance would be failure for a main effort in mechanized war--and the claims are, in fact,
exaggerated.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu
declared the end of Russian military mobilization on October 28. Shoigu stated that
military commissariats will recruit only volunteers and contract soldiers moving forward.
Shoigu
stated that Russia mobilized 300,000 men, 82,000 of whom are deployed in Ukraine and 218,000
of whom are training at Russian training grounds.
Putin stated that 41,000 of the 82,000
servicemen in Ukraine are serving in combat units.
Putin acknowledged that Russian forces
experienced logistical and supply issues with mobilized forces but falsely asserted that these
problems affected only the ”initial stage” of mobilization and that these problems are now solved.
Putin stated Russia must ”draw necessary conclusions,” modernize ”the entire system of military
registration and enlistment offices” and ”think over and make adjustments to the structure of all
components of the Armed Forces, including the Ground Forces.”
Putin likely ended mobilization in Russia to free up administrative and training capacity in time
for the delayed start of the Russian autumn conscription cycle, which will begin on November 1.
Russia’s military likely does not have the capacity to simultaneously support training 218,000
mobilized men and approximately 120,000 new autumn conscripts.
It is unclear how autumn
2022 conscripts will complete their training, moreover, since the usual capstones for Russian
conscripts‘ training involves joining a Russian military unit—which are already fighting in
Ukraine and badly damaged.
Russia‘s now-completed mobilization is unlikely to decisively impact Russian combat power.
Putin described a 50-50 split between mobilized personnel in combat and support roles in
Ukraine. If that ratio applies generally, it suggests that a total of 150,000 mobilized personnel will
deploy to combat roles in Ukraine after training is complete, likely sometime in November.
