Institute for the Study of War &
AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment
Karolina Hird, Katherine Lawlor, Riley Bailey, George Barros, and Frederick W.
Kagan
October 6, 6:15pm 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.
Russia’s use of Iranian-made drones is not generating asymmetric effects the way
the Ukrainian use of US-provided HIMARS systems has done and is unlikely to
affect the course of the war significantly. The deputy chief of the Main Operational
Department of the Ukrainian General Staff, Brigadier General Oleksiy Hromov, stated on October
6 that Russian forces have used a total of 86 Iranian Shahed-136 drones against Ukraine, 60% of
which Ukrainian forces have already destroyed.
As ISW reported yesterday, Russian forces do
not appear to be focusing these drones on asymmetric nodes near the battlefield. They have used
many drones against civilian targets in rear areas, likely hoping to generate nonlinear effects
through terror. Such efforts are not succeeding. Ukrainian Air Force Command Spokesperson
Yuri Ignat stated that the Russian army is increasingly using the Iranian-made drones to conserve
its stock of high-precision missiles.
Russian forces have likely used a non-trivial percentage of
the Shahed-136 supply so far if the claims of an anonymous US intelligence official at the end of
August were correct that Iran would likely provide ”hundreds” of drones to Russia.
The Wagner Private Military Company announced the creation of its own private
Telegram channel on October 6, indicating that Wagner financier Yevgeny
Prigozhin may want a voice that is clearly his own to compete with milbloggers and
possibly Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, who all have their own Telegram
channels. A Telegram channel affiliated with Prigozhin shared the invitation to the Wagner
channel, “Peacekeeper.” The Russian-language invitation reads “We arrived from Hell. We are
WAGNER - our business is death, and business is going well.”
In addition to Peacekeeper, the
channel suggested that followers subscribe to the “Novorossiya Z Project,” another private
channel. The creation of a group for Wagner to share “uncensored materials from the front” may
be in part a recruitment tool but is likely also an attempt to establish a formal means for Prigozhin
and his allies to directly influence the information space in much the same way that Kadyrov and
the Russian nationalist milbloggers use Telegram.
Key Takeaways
• Russia’s use of Iranian-made drones is not generating asymmetric effects the
way the Ukrainian use of US-provided HIMARS systems has done and is
unlikely to affect the course of the war significantly.
• The Wagner Private Military Company announced the creation of its own
private Telegram channel on October 6, indicating that Wagner financier
Yevgeny Prigozhin may want a voice that is clearly his own to compete with
milbloggers and possibly Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, who all have
their own Telegram channels.
• Ukrainian forces likely continued counteroffensive operations in
northeastern Kharkiv Oblast near Kupyansk and operations to threaten
Russian positions along the Kreminna-Svatove road in western Luhansk
Oblast on October 6.
