1 Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2023
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 30, 2023
Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, George Barros, Nicole Wolkov, Layne Philipson, and Frederick W.
Kagan
March 30, 7:30pm 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 maps that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic
frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on March 30 authorizing Russia’s semiannual spring
conscription which will induct 147,000 Russians between April 1 and July 15.[1] Russia conducts two
conscription cycles per year with the spring conscription cycle usually conscripting 134,000 Russian men.[2] Russia may
use Belarus’ training capacity to support the increase of 13,000 conscripts from previous years. A Ukrainian military official
reported on March 4 that Russian personnel training in Belarus do not exceed 9,000 to 10,000 at a time, and ISW previously
observed Russian forces training up to 12,000 troops in Belarus.[3] Satellite imagery indicates that Russian forces training
in Belarus at the Obuz-Lesnovsky Training Ground recently redeployed to Russia in mid-March, freeing up space for new
Russian trainees.[4] The new conscripts will not increase Russian combat power in the short term, as Russian conscripts
must undergo months of training and service before they see combat.
Putin remains unlikely to deploy newly conscripted troops to participate in combat in Ukraine due to
concerns for the stability of his regime. Chairman of the Russian State Duma Defense Committee Andrey Kartapolov
stated on March 30 that spring conscripts will not deploy to Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine during the spring 2023
conscription cycle.[5] Kartapolov also noted that Russian forces will not conscript men from occupied territories.
Kartapolov‘s statements may be true given that ISW has not observed the Russian military use conscripts on any significant
scale on the frontlines since the first months of the war and especially since the sinking of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s
flagship, the Moskva, which had some conscripted sailors aboard.[6] Putin’s use of conscripts during the winter-spring
period of 2022 sparked social tensions in Russia, and Putin is unlikely to risk his regime’s stability by deploying newly
conscripted servicemen to the frontlines.[7] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Putin even publicly instructed
Russian authorities to investigate alleged incidents of Russian conscript deployments to Ukraine on March 9, 2022 (which
were technically illegal at that time).[8] Putin likely perceives the political cost of deploying conscripts to the frontlines as
being higher than that of Russia’s September 2022 mobilization. Putin did not deploy conscripts from the spring
2022 conscription cycles in response to Ukraine’s September 2022 counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast but
instead mobilized reservists to stabilize collapsing frontlines. This decision indicated Putin’s policy
preference for mobilizing reservists rather than committing conscripts to battle — likely for political
reasons — even though conscripts entering the final months of their annual service obligation might fight
more effectively than civilian reservists. A prominent Russian news aggregator criticized the Russian conscription
system, noting that Russia’s current staffing levels for contract servicemen are insufficient even though Russia has 250,000
available conscripts.[9] The aggregator added that it is “unacceptable” that “half of the Russian army is fighting with all its
strength, while the other part is sitting in the barracks.”
The start of the new conscription period, even with a slightly increased number of conscripts, may actually
reduce Russian training capacity for reservists and other personnel recruited via crypto-mobilization
campaigns. Russia has limited training capacity and allocating it to training conscripts who will not fight in 2023 deprives
the Kremlin of the opportunity to train reservists and volunteers who would. The Kremlin may seek to increase its combat
personnel in Ukraine by coercing spring 2022 conscripts who are finishing their one-year service into signing military
contracts, since these freshly discharged conscriptions would need less additional training before deploying to Ukraine. It
is far from clear how successful such an effort will be.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed a prominent milblogger and Russian proxy battalion
commander as a regional Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) official for occupied Donetsk Oblast,
advancing several Kremlin efforts. Multiple Russian milbloggers reported on March 30 that Putin signed a decree
appointing former Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Security Minister and current Vostok Battalion commander Alexander
Khodakovsky as deputy head of the Main Directorate of Rosgvardia in occupied Donetsk Oblast, making him responsible
for Rosgvardia’s special rapid response and riot police (OMON and SOBR) in the region.[10] Khodakovsky announced on
March 30 that he received this appointment in early February 2023 and posted a public recruiting ad for Rosgvardia OMON
and SOBR units now under his command.[11] Khodakovsky publicly praises Putin and has been a loyal pro-Russian
Ukrainian separatist since March 2014.[12] (Khodorkovsky was a Ukrainian SPETSNAZ commander for the Donetsk Oblast
