1 Institute for the Study of War and The Critical Threats Project 2023
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 4, 2023
Riley Bailey, Karolina Hird, Kateryna Stepanenko, Grace Mappes, Madison Williams,
Layne Philipson, and Frederick W. Kagan
January 4, 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.
The Russian milblogger information space continues to seize on official responses to the
Ukrainian HIMARS strike on a Russian base in Makiivka to criticize endemic issues in
the Russian military apparatus. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) released an official
response to the strike on January 4 and attributed it to the "presence and mass use by personnel,
contrary to prohibitions, of mobile telephones within range of enemy weapons systems."
The Russian
MoD also claimed that the death toll of the strike is now 89, including a deputy regimental commander,
Lieutenant Colonel Bachurin.
The clear attempt by the Russian MoD to blame the strike on individual
mobilized servicemen, as ISW assessed the Russian MoD would likely do on January 2, drew immediate
ire from Russian milbloggers.
One milblogger emphasized that it is "extremely wrong to make mobile
phones guilty for strikes" and concluded that "it is not cell phones and their owners that are to blame,
but the negligence of the commanders."
Several milbloggers noted that the use of cell phones on the
frontline in the 21st century is inevitable and that efforts to crack down on their use are futile.
The
milblogger critique of the Russian MoD largely converged on the incompetence of Russian military
command, with many asserting that the Russian military leadership has no understanding of the basic
realities faced by Russian soldiers on the frontline and is seeking to shift the blame for its own command
failures on the "faceless masses" of Russian mobilized recruits.
The Russian milblogger response to the Russian MoD deflection of blame onto individual
servicemen accurately identifies the endemic unwillingness or inability of the Russian
military apparatus to address systemic failures. Cell phone use may have aided the Ukrainian
strike to some degree, but the Russian MoD’s fixation on this as the cause of the strike is largely
immaterial. An appropriately organized and properly trained and led modern army should not permit
the convergence of the factors that contributed to the Makiivka strike in the first place. The Russian
command was ultimately responsible for the decision to pack hundreds of mobilized men into non-
tactical positions within artillery range of the frontline and near an ammunition depot.
The Russian
MoD is likely using the strike to further deflect blame for its own institutional failures in the conduct of
the war onto mobilized forces, whose own conduct is additionally emblematic of the Russian force
generation failures.
The continued construction of Russian units using solely mobilized recruits will not
generate combat power commensurate with the number of mobilized personnel
deployed. Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Head Denis Pushilin remarked in the wake of the
Makiivka strike on January 4 that some of the officers of the targeted regiment were mobilized
servicemen.
Pushilin’s indication that certain Russian units are relying on newly mobilized and poorly
trained recruits for leadership roles, as opposed to drawing from the combat-hardened officer cadre,
adds further nuance to the poor performance of and high losses within units comprised of mobilized
recruits. Mobilized servicemen with minimal training and degraded morale in the role of officers are
likely contributing to poor operational security (OPSEC) practices and lack the basic acumen to make
sound tactical and operational decisions.
The Russian MoD has again shifted the rhetoric and format of its daily situational reports
(SITREPs) likely to flood the information space with insignificant claimed successes and
