Institute for the Study of War &
The Critical Threats Project 2023
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 6, 2023
Karolina Hird, Riley Bailey, Layne Philipson, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan
January 6, 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.
Russian officials and milbloggers largely did not react to the US announcement of more
than $3.75 billion in new military assistance to Ukraine, further highlighting that the
Kremlin and the Russian information space selectively choose when to portray Western
military assistance as an escalation. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on January
6 that the assistance would provide Ukraine with Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, artillery systems,
armored personnel carriers, surface-to-air missiles, and ammunition.
Russian officials and
milbloggers scarcely reacted to the latest announcement of military assistance, even though the
Kremlin most recently portrayed the transfer of purely defensive Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine
as an escalation.
The lack of Russian reaction to the US announcement of military assistance that Ukrainian forces could
use to support counteroffensive operations supports ISW’s previous assessment that the Kremlin is
more concerned with its information operations and the effect that Western military aid can have on
specific Russian military operations in Ukraine than with any particular weapons systems, red lines, or
the supposed Russian fears of putative Ukrainian offensive actions against the Russian Federation itself
using Western systems.
The Kremlin selectively responds to Western military shipments and
assistance to Ukraine to support information operations that aim to frame Ukraine as lacking
sovereignty and to weaken Western willingness to provide further military assistance by stoking fears
of Russian escalation.
The Kremlin and the Russian information space will likely seize upon future
Western military aid that they believe can support these information operations rather than as a
reflection of any actual Kremin red lines or specific concerns about the potential threat Western
weapons systems may pose. ISW has previously noted that these observations are worth considering in
the context of the Western discussion of providing Ukraine with Western tanks, long-range attack
systems, and other capabilities.
Russian officials and milbloggers continued to respond negatively to Russian President
Vladimir Putin’s January 5 ceasefire announcement as hostilities continued in Ukraine
on January 6. Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Head Denis Pushilin remarked that a ceasefire does
not mean that Russian troops will stop responding to "provocations by Ukrainian troops," or else
Russian forces run the risk of affording Ukraine the opportunity to improve their positions in critical
areas of the front.
Pushilin’s statement was an implicit criticism of the ceasefire announcement and
exemplifies the fact that the announcement was poorly received by Russian military leaders. Former
commander of militants in Donbas in 2014 and prominent milblogger Igor Girkin called the ceasefire
"a bold and decisive step towards defeat and surrender" for Russian forces and criticized Russian
leadership for failing to learn from the outcomes of previous ceasefires over the last eight years.
Other
prominent milbloggers seized on the ceasefire announcement to criticize the Kremlin’s conduct of the
war and accuse Russian leadership of directly placing Russian soldiers in harm’s way.
The ceasefire
announcement will likely continue to serve as a point of neuralgia for voices in the information space
that have historically enjoyed a mutually reinforcing relationship with Putin.
