Institute for the Study of War &
The Critical Threats Project 2023
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 18, 2023
Riley Bailey, George Barros, Grace Mappes, Layne Philipson, and Frederick W. Kagan
January 18, 8:00 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.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech commemorating the Soviet forces’ breaking
of the siege of Leningrad illustrated that he remains uncertain about his ability to
significantly shape the Russian information space. Putin used his January 18 speech to
reiterate standard and longstanding Kremlin rhetoric that falsely maintains that Russia launched the
invasion of Ukraine to protect residents in the Donbas from neo-Nazis who, the Kremlin claims, seized
control of the Ukrainian government in 2014.
Putin did not use the publicity of the event to make any
announcements concerning the war in Ukraine, such as a new mobilization wave or a formal declaration
of war, which some Russian milbloggers had floated.
Putin has notably declined to use several high-
profile public addresses, including his annual New Year’s Speech and his canceled annual address to
the Russian Federation Assembly, to make any notable new announcements about the war.
Putin likely
reiterated standard Kremlin rhetoric because it has resonated well with the Russian ultra-nationalist
pro-war community, elements of which have been increasingly critical of his conduct of the war.
Putin
may seek to shape the Russian information space over time, but he appears to be unwilling or unable
to attempt a dramatic speech that represents a significant inflection in his rhetoric.
Putin’s speech is likely part of a larger and relatively new informational effort to wrap
the "special military operation" inside the greater Russian national mythos of the Great
Patriotic War (the Second World War) to increase Russian support for a protracted war
and increasing mobilization. Putin’s speech was symbolically significant for the Russian domestic
audience. Putin is fond of using symbolic dates and historical analogies to address the Russian people
and delivered this speech in St. Petersburg to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Soviet forces
breaking the Nazi siege of Leningrad. Putin said that Soviet forces defeated Nazi Germany’s "genocide
of Leningrad" and drew comparisons with how contemporary Russia is fighting "Ukrainian neo-Nazis"
in Donbas—where Putin previously accused Ukraine of conducting a genocide to justify his 2022
invasion.
Putin likely seeks to shape the information space over time to regenerate support for the
invasion and for maintaining a protracted war by reintroducing pre–February 24 narratives about
"Ukrainian neo-Nazis" and "genocide of Russians" to regain control over war coverage after having
largely ceded this space to a variety of quasi-independent actors.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov augmented these efforts to increase Russian
support for a protracted war by explicitly claiming that Ukraine and the West are
pursuing the genocide of the Russian people. Lavrov accused the West of assembling a coalition
of European countries to use Ukraine as a proxy in a war that aims to solve the "Russian question" in
the same way that Adolf Hitler had sought a "final solution" to eradicate Europe’s Jewish population.
Lavrov argued that Western officials’ desire for the strategic defeat of Russia is tantamount to the
genocide of the Russian people.
Lavrov likely made the comments to set more explicit information
conditions for a protracted war by framing the war in Ukraine as just as existential for Russians as Nazi
Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in the Second World War. Lavrov’s comments are far more
noteworthy than Putin’s speech, which may suggest that the Kremlin is instructing high-ranking
