Institute for the Study of War &
The Critical Threats Project 2023
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 14, 2023
Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, Angela Howard, and Mason Clark
January 14, 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.
Russian forces launched two waves of missile strikes targeting Ukrainian critical
infrastructure on January 14. Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces conducted 50
missile and three airstrikes against Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Vinnytsya, and
unspecified settlements in western Ukraine.
Russian missile strikes on Dnipro City damaged an
apartment building, killing at least 5 people and wounding over 60.
The Ukrainian General Staff
reported that Russian forces struck Ukrainian cities and settlements in two waves: first employing S-
300 and S-400 systems in Belarus against ground targets in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast in the morning and
later launching 28 cruise missile strikes using Kh-101/Kh-555, Kh-22, sea-based Kalibr, and Kh-59
guided air missiles.
The Ukrainian General Staff added that Ukrainian forces shot down 18 cruise
missiles and three guided air missiles.
Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Yuriy Ignat stated that Russian forces used missiles fired with a
sharp ballistic trajectory, possibly modified S-300 and S-400 missiles or Iskander-M systems, to strike
Kyiv, noting that Ukrainian forces cannot currently shoot these missiles down when fired from short-
range.
Ignat explained that S-300 and S-400 missiles launched from Belarus can hit Kyiv in less than
two minutes. Ignat stated that Ukraine can only effectively prevent these strikes by destroying Russian
S-300 complexes with Ukrainian long-range systems. Ignat added that Russian forces have previously
used these modified systems to target Ukrainian infrastructure in Kharkiv and Mykolaiv oblasts.
The Kremlin continues to falsely claim that Ukraine poses an existential threat to Russia
to reject Ukrainian offers of a peace summit and retain Putin’s original maximalist goals.
Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Security Council Vassily Nebenzya responded
to Ukrainian proposals for a peace summit on January 13 with a series of false claims framing Ukraine
as an aggressor that was, ludicrously, “about to attack Moscow.”
Nebenzya stated that Russia’s war in
Ukraine will only end “when the threat to Russia no longer comes from the territory of Ukraine” and
when “the discrimination [against] the Russian-speaking population” in Ukraine ends.
Kremlin claims
of discrimination against Russian speakers in Ukraine are a longstanding information operation
seeking to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Nebenzya reiterated the Kremlin’s narrative that
Ukraine’s refusal to recognize Russia’s illegal annexation of occupied Ukrainian territories and
relationships with the West threaten Russia and claimed that Ukrainian ties with the West (rather than
Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine) undermined Ukraine’s sovereignty and cultural identity.
Nebenzya claimed Ukraine is not interested in negotiations and is no more than a NATO paramilitary
company—both longstanding claims that the Kremlin intends to delegitimize Ukraine as an
independent actor and shift the responsibility for negotiations onto Western officials, who the Kremlin
likely believes Russia can pressure into preemptive concessions.
Nebenzya asserted that if the Kremlin
cannot achieve its maximalist goals through negotiations, it will achieve them through military means.
Nebenzya’s speech again demonstrates that the Kremlin has not abandoned its maximalist goals in
Ukraine, false justifications for its unprovoked war of aggression, and will seek to coerce the West to
negotiate over Ukraine’s head.
