1 Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2023
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 21, 2023
Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, and Frederick W.
Kagan
April 21, 7:45 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.
Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion
of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces
daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive
monthly.
Russian forces used a new delivery of Shahed drones to strike Ukraine for the third
consecutive day, targeting Kyiv for the first time in 25 days. The Ukrainian General Staff
reported that Russian forces launched 26 drones on April 20, of which Ukrainian forces shot down 21
and 12 drones on April 21, of which Ukrainian forces shot down eight.
1
Russian forces targeted Kyiv,
Odesa, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv oblasts overnight on
April 19 to 20 and 20 to 21.
2
The Kyiv City Military Administration reported no damage from the strikes
in Kyiv.
3
Head of the Ukrainian Joint Coordination Press Center of the Southern Forces Nataliya
Humenyuk stated on April 20 that Russian forces waited until a new shipment of Shahed drones arrived
to use them for further strikes and noted that Russian use of missiles has also decreased.
4
Commander of the Russian Baltic Sea Fleet Admiral Viktor Liina reportedly assumed
command of the Russian Pacific Fleet on April 21 following the completion of Russian
drills in the Pacific on April 20. Kremlin newswire TASS, citing an unnamed source, reported that
Liina replaced Admiral Sergei Avakyants who had commanded the Russian Pacific Fleet since 2012.
5
Unofficial reports of Liina’s appointments coincide with the Russian Ministry of Defense’s (MoD)
announcement that the Pacific Fleet and elements of the Russian Aerospace Forces completed drills in
the Pacific under the supervision of Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy Admiral Nikolai
Yevmenov.
6
The Russian MoD may have named Yevmenov as the supervisor for these drills following
milblogger and nationalist discourse about Avakyants’ abrupt termination amidst the combat readiness
checks.
7
ISW previously assessed that Avakyants’ dismissal may have been a result of his inability to
recreate pre-war, large scale Pacific Fleet combat readiness checks due to the Pacific Fleet’s significant
combat losses in Ukraine.
8
A Russian fighter-bomber accidentally bombed Belgorod on April 20. The Russian Ministry
of Defense (MoD) announced on April 20 that a Russian Su-34 bomber accidentally dropped a bomb
while flying over Belgorod City.
9
The explosion left a crater with a 20-meter (65-foot) radius in the
southern part of the city and injured three civilians.
10
The cause of the accidental bombing remains
unclear, as does the reason for flying an armed bomber over a populated city. Russian milbloggers did
not react to the bombing with the same vitriolic anger they often use with Russian battlefield failures.
One milblogger compared the accidental bombing to the Su-34 crash in Yeysk, Krasnodar Krai, in
October 2022, claiming that Belgorod residents should be thankful that the bomb did not hit a
residential building.
11
Another milblogger expressed appreciation for the MoD taking responsibility for
the accident and characterized the act as an atypical sign of health in the MoD.
12
A Rossiya-1
broadcaster, speaking about the event, stated that “modern military equipment allows Russian units to
eliminate extremists in the special operation zone from a minimal distance”-- likely an error that
indicates confusion in Russian state media on how to frame the accident in the information space.
13
