1 Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2023
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 11, 2023
Grace Mappes, George Barros, Karolina Hird, Nicole Wolkov, and Frederick W. Kagan
April 11, 5:30pm 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.
The Kremlin passed legislation to use tools of digital authoritarianism to digitize and
improve the effectiveness of issuing summonses and crack down on Russian draft
dodgers. The Russian State Duma adopted a bill in its third reading on April 11 to create a digital
unified register of Russian citizens eligible for military service.
1
Russian military recruitment offices
will use the digital register to issue summonses to military service. The unified register harvests Russian
citizens’ personal identification information—including medical, educational, and residence history,
foreign citizenship status, and insurance and tax data—from multiple Russian legal entities, including
Russia’s Federal Tax Service, investigative bodies, courts, medical institutions, the Russian Pension and
Social Insurance Fund, the Central Election Commission, and federal and local authorities.
2
Summoned individuals may not leave Russia and must appear at a military recruitment office within
20 days of being summoned. The law bans summoned individuals who are 20 days delinquent for
reporting from driving vehicles, buying or selling real estate, and taking out loans. A senior Russian
legislator stated that the law will correct some of the bureaucratic shortcomings that appeared during
Russia’s partial mobilization in September 2022.
3
Some Russian milbloggers who have long agitated
for more aggressive force generation policies praised the law and stated that it exemplifies healthy
interactions between Russian civil society and government.
4
ISW previously forecasted that the
Kremlin would marry Soviet-style societal control measures with big data and 21st-century information
technology to intensify control over the Russian population after Russia used facial recognition, QR
codes, and mobile device geo-tracking technology to enforce a draconian COVID-19 quarantine in
2020.
5
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin
acknowledged each other's roles in the Bakhmut effort on April 11. The Russian MoD and
Prigozhin claimed that Wagner fighters comprise the main effort to take territory and push Ukrainian
forces in central Bakhmut, whereas unspecified Russian Airborne (VDV) elements comprise the
supporting effort on Wagner’s flanks north and south of Bakhmut, including near Zalizhnyanske, Sakko
i Vantsetti, and Mykolaivka.
6
The Russian VDV forces on the flanks likely aim only to hold the flanks
rather than make any significant advances. This array of forces suggests that the Russian MoD intends
to use the Wagner Group to capture Bakhmut while minimizing casualties among conventional Russian
forces—supporting ISW’s prior assessments that the MoD seeks to use Wagner forces to capture
Bakhmut then supplant them and take credit for the victory.
7
Prigozhin reiterated that Wagner forces
are making gains within Bakhmut, however, claiming that Russian forces control 80 percent of
Bakhmut due to Wagner advances.
8
Russian forces occupy at least 30.68 square kilometers (about the
size of the Chicago O’Hare airport) or 76.5 percent of Bakhmut based on ISW's control of terrain
