1 Institute for the Study of War & The Critical Threats Project 2023
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 12, 2023
Kateryna Stepanenko and Frederick W. Kagan
February 12, 8:45 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.
ISW is publishing an abbreviated campaign update today, February 12. This report
focuses on the impact of Russian information operations on delaying and deterring
Western transfers of high-end weapons systems and other military aid to Ukraine.
Russia has partially reconstituted its ability to conduct information operations as part of
its hybrid warfare campaigns in support of military operations. These information
operations will continue to emerge as Russia attempts to set conditions for upcoming
operations and mitigate setbacks, and the West must critically evaluate the context of
Russian information operations and avoid simply interacting with them on their own
terms.
Russia has partially regained the ability to conduct successful information campaigns in
support of strategic objectives and even discrete operational aims. Russian hybrid warfare
theory has long called for the integration of information campaigns and military operations, with
information operations sometimes taking precedence over kinetic activity.
Russia skillfully conducted
multiple information campaigns over the two decades preceding the re-invasion of Ukraine in February
2022, most notably those that supported the Minsk II Accords in which Germany and France accepted
Russia as a mediator rather than a belligerent in Ukraine.
The Biden Administration conducted a
remarkable and successful counter-information campaign in the months leading up to the February
2022 full-scale invasion, however, disrupting multiple Russian information campaigns intended to
induce Ukrainian surrender, separate Ukraine from the West, and create favorable conditions for the
re-invasion.
The Biden Administration and the West have also cut off and derailed Kremlin-controlled
media operations in the United States and Europe since the start of the re-invasion, causing the Kremlin
to struggle to conduct successful information operations.
Moscow, as a result, has been unable to
achieve the objectives that its pre-re-invasion campaigns had been pursuing. Russia has, however,
reconstituted the ability to conduct discrete information campaigns in support of
specific strategic objectives and to tailor those campaigns to mitigate battlefield setbacks
and to set conditions for future planned operations.
Russian information campaigns have supported a continuous strategic objective of
deterring or slowing the West’s provision of material support to Ukraine. Russian
President Vladimir Putin likely bought into his own pre-invasion narrative that the West would not
support Ukraine but would instead seek to maintain good relations with Russia, fueling his hopes for a
speedy victory in Ukraine.
Putin soon realized that the war would protract due to his military’s inability
to achieve decisive victories and Ukraine’s surprising (to him) determination to resist, and because of
the West’s surprising (to him) willingness to support Ukraine’s resistance.
Putin thereupon began to
focus on feeding the arguments Western leaders were making to themselves about the dangers of
providing Ukraine with too much materiel or certain kinds of materiel.
These Russian information
campaigns have been continuous in their pursuit of the common aim of inhibiting Western support for
Ukraine regardless of battlefield conditions. The operational-level information campaigns discussed
below nest into this strategic purpose, suitably adjusted for the specific battlefield circumstances of the
moment.
