Institute for the Study of War &
The Critical Threats Project 2023
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 28, 2023
George Barros, Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Angela Howard, and
Frederick W. Kagan
January 28, 6pm 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.
Conventional Russian forces are likely replacing exhausted Wager Group forces to maintain the
offensive in Bakhmut after the Wagner Group’s offensive in Bakhmut culminated with the
capture of Soledar around January 12. The Wagner Group’s assault on Bakhmut has likely culminated
with its surge on Soledar. Wagner Group forces in Bakhmut have not made significant gains since capturing
Soledar around January 12. Conventional Russian units are now participating in fighting in Bakhmut to
reinvigorate the Russian offensive there. Combat footage posted on January 20 indicates Russian Airborne
Forces (VDV) are operating around Bakhmut as the footage shows a Russian BMD-4M – niche mechanized
equipment exclusively used by the VDV.
A Russian source reported that Wagner and VDV elements conducted
joint operations in Bakhmut on December 27.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has been increasingly reporting
that Russian VDV are operating in the Bakhmut area since early January 2023, indicating conventional Russian
forces are augmenting if not replacing likely culminated Wagner forces in the area.
Wagner Group forces -
particularly convicts - have taken heavy causalities in Bakhmut since fall 2022. One anonymous US official
reportedly stated on January 5 that the Wagner Group’s forces have sustained more than 4,100 deaths and
10,000 wounded, including over 1,000 killed between late November and early December near Bakhmut.
Ukrainian officials have maintained that the Russian offensive on Bakhmut has not culminated.
ISW has
previously assessed that the Russian offensive on Bakhmut was culminating.
We continue to assess that the
Wagner offensive has culminated, but now assess that the Russians are committing conventional units to
continue the fight. The larger Russian effort against Bakhmut has likely thus not culminated.
Russian forces are attempting to prevent Ukraine from regaining the initiative possibly ahead of
a planned decisive Russian offensive in Donbas. Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov
stated on December 22 that Russian forces are focusing most of their efforts on seizing Donetsk Oblast, which
likely entails Russian forces capturing key positions in western Luhansk Oblast and northeastern Donetsk Oblast
to reach the oblasts’ administrative borders.
Russian forces have resumed ground attacks in the Vuhledar area
(which they unsuccessfully attempted to reach in late October 2022) and are conducting small-scale assaults in
Zaporizhia Oblast and around Donetsk City. Russian forces are conducting a large-scale offensive operation on
the Bakhmut frontline as their current main effort and a defensive operation, for now, on the Svatove-Kreminna
line.
The localized attacks on Vuhledar and settlements in Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts are likely intended to
disperse Ukrainian troops and set conditions for a decisive Russian offensive in western Luhansk Oblast, as ISW
had previously assessed.
Russian forces may be attempting to disperse the Ukrainian grouping of forces on the
Svatove-Kreminna line to enable a Russian recapture of Lyman, Donetsk Oblast. Russian forces could seek to
use Lyman as a launching point for a decisive offensive to secure Donbas by conducting an offensive from Lyman
in tandem with a drive on Bakhmut or from Bakhmut toward Slovyansk if the Russians succeed in capturing
Bakhmut. The Russians may imagine that they can drive from their current positions directly to the Donetsk
Oblast border along several independent lines of advance, although it is unlikely that they would not recognize
the extreme improbability of success in such an attempt. The Russians more likely intend to pursue several
