Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment - Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, Riley Bailey, Layne Philipson, George Barros, and Layne Philipson, and Frederick W. Kagan

2 Institute for the Study of War and the Critical Threats Project 2023 3 Institute for the Study of War and the Critical Threats Project 2023 We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well- covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. [...] the military insignia and uniform of the enemy.”30 7 Institute for the Study of War and the Critical Threats Project 2023 8 Institute for the Study of War and the Critical Threats Project 2023 Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine Russian Subordinate Main Effort—Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas) Russian for. [...] Head of the Ukrainian Joint Coordination Press Center of the Southern Forces Nataliya Humenyuk stated that Russian forces continue to focus their efforts in eastern Ukraine but that Russian forces have not ruled out the possibility of an “unexpected” secondary offensive in the south.42 Ukrainian Joint Press Center of the Tavriisk Direction Defense Forces spokesperson Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi stated. [...] The source claimed that Ukrainian forces increased the number of raids across the Dnipro River since late January 2023, in order to fix Russian forces to the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast.47 Russian forces continued routine artillery strikes west of Hulyaipole and in Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolaiv oblasts on February 3.48 Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command warne. [...] The New York Times reported that Western officials stated that thousands of Russian convict volunteers have died in the Bakhmut area, supporting independent Russian outlet Meduza’s reporting that over 80 percent of the Wagner Group’s reported 40,000 convict volunteers are either dead or missing.53 The high Russian casualty count for the war in Ukraine continues to have deleterious effects on the R.