Institute for the Study of War and
the Critical Threats Project 2023
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 15, 2023
Riley Bailey, Kateryna Stepanenko, George Barros, Nicole Wolkov, Layne Philipson,
Kita Fitzpatrick, and Frederick Kagan
February 15, 7:30 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.
Russia’s costly military campaign in Ukraine has likely significantly depleted Russian
equipment and manpower reserves necessary to sustain a successful large-scale
offensive in eastern Ukraine. UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told the BBC that the UK had not
seen the Russian “massing of a single force to punch through in a big offensive” and noted that Russians
are now trying to advance in Donbas at a “huge cost.”
Wallace estimated that Russia could have
committed up to 97 percent of its army to the fight in Ukraine and that its combat effectiveness has
decreased by 40 percent due to an “almost First World War level of attrition” that measures Russian
advances in meters in human wave attacks. ISW cannot independently confirm Wallace’s estimates,
but his observation that Russia lacks sufficient mechanized combat power for a breakthrough aligns
with previous ISW assessments that the conventional Russian military must undergo significant
reconstitution before regaining the ability to conduct effective maneuver warfare.
Wallace’s
observations also suggest that Russia does not have untapped combat-ready reserves capable of
executing a large-scale offensive, which is also ISW’s assessment.
Russia’s inability to regenerate expended mechanized vehicles in the short term further
restricts Russian maneuver warfare capabilities. The International Institute for Strategic
Studies (IISS) reported that Russia lost about 50 percent of its T-72B and T-72B3M tanks and many T-
80 tanks, forcing Russian forces to rely on older equipment.
Wallace noted that two-thirds of Russia’s
tanks are destroyed or unusable. The UK Ministry of Defense assessed that the Kremlin likely
recognizes that Russia’s low industrial output is a “critical weakness,” and that Russian production is
not meeting the Kremlin’s long-term requirements.
Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council
Dmitry Medvedev, for example, called for increased production of weapons and modern tanks on
February 9.
The Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS) noted that Russia is still capable of producing
large quantities of small arms, missiles, and tanks but that its defense industry base (DIB) will continue
to struggle to offset the effects of Western sanctions.
The NIS added that Russia will also need to
undergo an extensive effort to set up new production lines and will need time to recruit and train
workers. Some Russian defense firms continue to complain that they do not have sufficient personnel
to support the intensified industrial effort, while Russian pro-war milbloggers noted that Russia needs
to immediately embark on modernization and personnel recruitment efforts to solve issues with tank
production.
Such measures are unlikely to increase the Russian defense industry’s capacity to produce
tanks rapidly and at scale, and would certainly not do so in time to affect the outcome of the current
Russian offensive or of a Ukrainian counter-offensive launched in the coming months. The timely
Western provisions of tanks and armored vehicles to Ukraine would further offset
Russia’s ability to conduct mechanized warfare as Russia struggles to restart its defense
production in the immediate term. Ukraine likely continues to have a window of
opportunity to initiate large-scale counteroffensives over the next few months, but its
ability to do so likely rests heavily on the speed and scale at which the West provides it
the necessary materiel, particularly tanks and armored vehicles.
