1 Institute for the Study of War & The Critical Threats Project 2023
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 12, 2023
Riley Bailey, Madison Williams, Layne Philipson, Kateryna Stepanenko,
George Barros, Karolina Hird, and Mason Clark
January 12, 7pm 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’ likely capture of Soledar on January 11 is not an operationally significant
development and is unlikely to presage an imminent Russian encirclement of Bakhmut.
Geolocated footage posted on January 11 and 12 indicates that Russian forces likely control most if not all of
Soledar, and have likely pushed Ukrainian forces out of the western outskirts of the settlement.
1
The Ukrainian
General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks against Sil in Donetsk Oblast—a settlement
over a kilometer northwest of Soledar and beyond previous Ukrainian positions.
2
The Ukrainian General Staff
and other senior military sources largely did not report that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults against
Soledar on January 12 as they have previously.
3
Russian sources claimed that Russian forces are still clearing
Soledar of remaining Ukrainian forces as of January 12.
4
Russian milbloggers posted footage on January 12 of
Wagner Group fighters freely walking in Soledar and claimed that they visited the settlement alongside Russian
forces.
5
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has not announced that Russian forces have captured Soledar,
but Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov congratulated Russian forces for successful offensive operations in the
settlement.
6
All available evidence indicates Ukrainian forces no longer maintain an organized defense in
Soledar. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s January 12 statement that Ukrainian forces maintain
positions in Soledar may be referring to defensive positions near but not in Soledar.
7
Russian information operations have overexaggerated the importance of Soledar, which is at best a Russian
Pyrrhic tactical victory. ISW continues to assess that the capture of Soledar—a settlement smaller than 5.5 square
miles—will not enable Russian forces to exert control over critical Ukrainian ground lines of communication
(GLOCs) into Bakhmut nor better position Russian forces to encircle the city in the short term.
8
Russian forces
likely captured Soledar after committing significant resources to a highly attritional tactical victory which will
accelerate degraded Russian forces’ likely culmination near Bakhmut.
9
Russian forces may decide to maintain a
consistently high pace of assaults in the Bakhmut area, but Russian forces’ degraded combat power and
cumulative exhaustion will prevent these assaults from producing operationally significant results.
10
Russian President Vladimir Putin likely seeks scapegoats for the Russian defense industrial
base’s struggle to address equipment and technological shortages. Putin publicly criticized Russian
Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov for aviation industry enterprises not receiving state orders during a
cabinet of ministers meeting on January 11.
11
Putin stated that some enterprises have yet to receive state orders
for 2023 and are not hiring more staff or preparing to increase output for potential orders in the future. Putin
also interrupted Manturov’s explanation that the ministry had already drafted orders for civil and military
industries, leading Manturov to admit that Russia had not issued a portion of documents for aircraft
manufactures that would approve state funding for their projects. Putin argued that the enterprise directors
informed him that they had not received any state orders amidst current “conditions” in Russia and urged
Manturov to not “play a fool.” Manturov attempted to soften the demand by stating that the ministry will “try to
do everything possible,” to which Putin responded that he should not try his best but instead complete the task
within a month. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later downplayed the altercation as “a normal workflow.”
This incident is likely part of an ongoing Kremlin information campaign to elevate Putin’s image as an involved
wartime leader. The Kremlin could have cut out the disagreement from its official transcript (as it often does for
most of Putin’s meetings, which are heavily edited and stage managed), but chose to publicize Putin’s harsh
response, possibly to identify other officials within the Kremlin as the culprits for Russian defense industrial
