1 Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2023
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 13, 2023
Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, George Barros, Grace Mappes, Angela Howard, and Frederick W.
Kagan
April 13, 6 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.
Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These
maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic
frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.
A senior Ukrainian official warned that Russia can reconstitute itself as a serious threat to Ukraine in the
long run despite facing severe force generation problems at this time. Deputy Chief of the Main Operational
Directorate of the Ukrainian General Staff Brigadier General Oleksiy Hromov stated on April 13 that Russian crypto-
mobilization efforts are stagnating due to Russians’ growing awareness that causality rates for Russian soldiers in Ukraine
are high. Hromov stated that Volgograd and Saratov oblasts have only met seven percent (134 of the 7,800 recruits) and 14
percent (270 of the 7,600 recruits) of their regional recruitment quotas for the first quarter of 2023 respectively.[1] Hromov
also stated that Moscow is creating “alternative” private military companies (PMCs) to fill these gaps, but that these PMCs
will not be as powerful as the Wagner Group in the near future, partially supporting previous ISW forecasts.[2] Hromov
noted that Ukraine and its allies must not underestimate Russian force generation capabilities in the long run for a
protracted war of attrition. ISW has previously warned that the US and NATO should not underestimate Russian capabilities
in the long run, as Russia can regenerate by leveraging its population and defense industrial base (DIB) to threaten Ukraine
and NATO if Russian President Vladimir Putin decides to fundamentally change Russia’s strategic resource allocation over
the long run.[3] Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced plans on January 17 to form 12 new maneuver divisions
over the course of several years, for example.[4]
The Kremlin has not yet undertaken the necessary reorganization of its war effort to effectively leverage
economies of scale to support large-scale Russian force generation, however. Current Russian half-measures
and decentralized recruitment efforts to regenerate forces such as crypto-mobilization, leaning on Russia’s regions to
generate volunteers, relying on new small PMCs, and pressuring various Russian state-owned enterprises to sponsor and
pay for recruitment campaigns seek to shift the resource burden to generate forces among different siloviki and elements of
the Russian state.[5] The Kremlin is reportedly billing the Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom for its volunteer
recruitment efforts in occupied Donetsk Oblast, offering volunteers 400,000 rubles (approximately $4,900) salary per
month.[6] A Russian State Duma official proposed the institution of a new 2–3% “military tax” on Russian citizens’ income
— a provision that would allow Putin to reduce the burden on existing federal funds but would likely anger more
Russians.[7] These various Russian groups’ resources are finite. The Kremlin’s currently unsustainable effort to
commandeer them will exhaust itself without fundamental resource generation and resource allocation reform. These
current efforts will generate some additional combat power in the short term, to be sure, but will do so with diminishing
marginal returns at increasing cost. The Russian state’s current model of resource allocations and economies of scale do not
synergize disjointed efforts to tap discrete resource pools. The Kremlin’s decision to continue relying on financially
incentivizing voluntary recruits with both one-time payments and accrued lifetime benefits will create large long-term
structural costs and will not be sustainable indefinitely.[8]
Ukrainian assessments confirm ISW’s longstanding assessment that Russia cannot conduct multiple
offensive operations simultaneously at this time. Deputy Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Ukrainian
General Staff Brigadier General Oleksiy Hromov stated on April 13 that Russian forces deployed unspecified Russian forces
from the Avdiivka area of operations to reinforce offensive operations around Bakhmut and that Russia has lost about 4,000
Wagner and conventional personnel in Bakhmut since around March 30.[9] Hromov’s statement supports ISW’s
longstanding assessment that the Russian military — in its current form — is unable to conduct large-scale, simultaneous
offensive campaigns on multiple axes.[10]
Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly personally approved the arrest of Wall Street
Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich. Bloomberg reported on April 12 that Putin personally approved the arrest
of Gershkovich on espionage charges before the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested Gershkovich in
Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast on March 30 for collecting information constituting a state secret about the activities of a
Russian military-industrial complex enterprise.[11] Putin’s reported personal involvement in the arrest suggests that the
arrest was likely a retaliatory response to the US arrest of Russian national Sergey Cherkasov on March 24 on charges of
acting as agent of a foreign power.[12] Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied that Putin ordered Gershkovich’s arrest
and stated that Russian special services independently decided to arrest Gershkovich.[13] ISW has previously reported that
