1 Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 19, 2023
Karolina Hird and Frederick W. Kagan
February 19, 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.
ISW is publishing an abbreviated campaign update today, February 19. This report forecasts the
unlikelihood of significantly increased Russian offensive operations this winter based on an assessment
of Russian forces already committed to active operations compared with Russia’s overall ground forces
order of battle.
The major phase of Russian offensive operations in Luhansk Oblast is underway, and Russia likely lacks
sufficient uncommitted reserves to dramatically increase the scale or intensity of the offensive this
winter. Russian conventional ground forces are generally deploying and fighting in normal doctrinal formations and units
rather than in battalion tactical groups or other ad hoc structures. The observed absence of several critical tank units
suggests that the Russian military continues to struggle to replace equipment, especially tanks, lost during previous failed
offensive operations. Russian forces almost certainly still have some reconstituted mechanized units in reserve, but the
commitment of these limited reserves to the Luhansk Oblast frontline is unlikely to change the course of the ongoing
offensive dramatically. The Russian offensive will very likely continue for some time and may temporarily gain momentum
as the final reserves are committed—if they are—but will very likely culminate well short of its objectives and likely short of
achieving operationally significant gains.
The current pattern of commitment in Luhansk Oblast indicates that Russian forces in this area are
deploying in doctrinal units and formations from the military-district level down to the brigade/regiment
level at least, and likely down to the battalion level as well. Russian forces operating in and near the Luhansk
Oblast frontline are drawn almost entirely from the Western Military District (WMD) with a few reinforcements from other
force groupings. This disposition suggests that the Russian military command has returned to the traditional military
district command-and-control structure wherein all units in a discrete geographical area fall under the area of responsibility
of a single military district. Two full WMD divisions (the 144th Motorized Rifle Division and the 3rd Motorized Rifle
Division) have each deployed their maneuver regiments in line allowing the division commanders to operate as divisions
are designed to do. These regiments have been reconstituted with mobilized personnel, indicating that the Russian
command is using mobilized soldiers as replacements in doctrinal structures instead of creating ad hoc formations.[1]
Russian forces have deployed throughout this war in various non-standard and non-doctrinal structures, starting with the
battalion tactical group but encompassing also volunteer regiments, BARS (National Combat Reserve) units, and militia
units belonging to the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR respectively), to say nothing of the Wagner
Private Military Company (PMC) formations of convicts. The return to doctrinal structures represents an inflection in
Russian force structure and campaign design. As ISW has previously assessed, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) is
currently engaging in a number of reforms meant to formalize and professionalize the Russian Armed Forces and prepare
to fight a protracted war in Ukraine as a conventional army.[2] The current array of forces along the Luhansk Oblast
frontline likely reflects the ongoing shift in Russian military procedure towards the Russian MoD establishment.
The Russians are receiving less benefit from this return to normal in military operations than they might have hoped because
of the badly degraded condition of their forces. They did not leave enough time to train their mobilized reservists to
standards sufficient to support large-scale offensive mechanized maneuver warfare, as ISW has repeatedly observed; and
they clearly lack the equipment necessary to kit out their reconstituted units. The coherent 3rd and 144th Motorized Rifle
Divisions attacking on the Luhansk Oblast axis have thus made relatively few gains since the offensive began.
The Russian military has committed a large majority of the conventional elements belonging to the
Western Military District (WMD) to its decisive offensive effort in Luhansk Oblast, leaving relatively few
elements either in reserve or unobserved. ISW has observed elements of Russia’s WMD, along with some
supplemental Central Military District (CMD), Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic (DNR and LNR) and airborne (VDV)
elements, arrayed along the Luhansk Oblast frontline, with a specific concentration of units along the Svatove-Kreminna
line. The WMD has fully committed both rifle divisions of the 20th Combined Arms Army (CAA)—the 144th Motor Rifle
Division (144th MRD) and 3rd Motor Rifle Division (3rd MRD)—to the Svatove-Kreminna line in Luhansk Oblast.[3] ISW
has observed both of the 144th MRD’s rifle regiments (the 254th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment and the 488th Guards Motor
Rifle Regiment) and its tank regiment (the 59th Guards Tank Regiment) committed along the Svatove-Kreminna line but
has only observed the 752nd and 252nd Motorized Rifle Regiments of the 3rd MRD by name.[4] ISW has also observed
reports that elements of the 4thTank Division of the 1st Guards Tank Army, of the 26th Tank Regiment of the 47thTank
