Institute for the Study of War &
AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, October 4
Kateryna Stepanenko, Karolina Hird, Katherine Lawlor, Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes,
and Frederick W. Kagan
October 4, 10:00 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.
Ukrainian forces continued to make significant gains in Kherson Oblast while
simultaneously continuing advances in Kharkiv and Luhansk oblasts on October 4.
Ukrainian forces liberated several settlements on the eastern bank of the Inhulets River along the T2207
highway, forcing Russian forces to retreat to the south toward Kherson City. Ukrainian forces also
continued to push south along the Dnipro River and the T0403 highway, severing two Russian ground
lines of communication (GLOCs) in northern Kherson Oblast and forcing Russians south of the
Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border toward the Beryslav area. Ukrainian military officials noted
that the Ukrainian interdiction campaign is crippling Russian attempts to transfer additional
ammunition, reserves, mobilized men, and means of defense to frontline positions.
Ukrainian forces
also continued to advance east of the Oskil River in Kharkiv Oblast, and Russian sources claimed that
battles are ongoing near the R66 Svatove-Kreminna highway.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of partial mobilization is having
more significant short-term impacts on the Russian domestic context than on the war in
Ukraine, interacting with Russian battlefield failures to exacerbate fractures in the
information space that confuse and undermine Putin’s narratives. Ukrainian sources have
rightly observed that the partial mobilization is not a major threat in the short term because the
Ukrainian counteroffensive is moving faster than the mobilization can generate effects.
Ukrainian
Intelligence Chief Kyrylo Budanov even stated that mobilization in Russia is a “gift” to Ukraine because
the Kremlin is finding itself in a “dead end,” caught between its failures and its determination to hold
what it has seized.
The controversies surrounding the poorly executed partial mobilization, coupled
with significant Russian defeats in Kharkiv Oblast and around Lyman, have intensified infighting
between pro-Putin Russian nationalist factions and are creating new fractures among voices who speak
to Putin’s core constituencies.
Putin is visibly failing at balancing the competing demands of the Russian nationalists
who have become increasingly combative since mobilization began despite sharing
Putin’s general war aims and goals in Ukraine. ISW has identified three main factions in the
current Russian nationalist information space: Russian milbloggers and war correspondents, former
Russian or proxy officers and veterans, and some of the Russian siloviki—people with meaningful
power bases and forces of their own. Putin needs to retain the support of all three of these factions.
Milbloggers present Putin’s vision to a pro-war audience in both Russia and the proxy republics. The
veteran community is helping organize and support force generation campaigns.
The siloviki are
providing combat power on the battlefield. Putin needs all three factions to sustain his war effort, but
the failures in Ukraine combined with the chaotic partial mobilization are seemingly disrupting the
radical nationalist community in Russia. Putin is currently trying to appease this community by
featuring some milbloggers on state-owned television, allowing siloviki to generate their own forces
and continue offensive operations around Bakhmut and Donetsk City, and placating veterans by
ordering mobilization and engaging the general public in the war effort as they have long demanded.
