ISW: Russia likely to take decisive strategic action in war within next six months

The Kremlin is likely preparing to conduct a decisive strategic action in the next six months intended to regain the initiative and end Ukraine’s current string of operational successes.

Russia has failed to achieve most of its major operational objectives in Ukraine over the past eleven months. Russian forces failed to capture Kyiv, as well as Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, and to maintain gains in Kharkiv Oblast or hold the strategic city of Kherson, Caliber.Az reports, citing an analysis of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

The Russian air and missile campaign targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure under Army General Sergei Surovikin in late 2022 also failed to generate significant operational effects or demoralise Ukrainian society, as the Kremlin likely intended.

Putin and senior Kremlin officials continue reiterating that Russia has not abandoned its maximalist objectives despite Russian defeats on the battlefield. While Putin has not changed his objectives for the war, there is emerging evidence that he is changing fundamental aspects of Russia’s approach to the war by undertaking several new lines of effort.

ISW has observed several Russian lines of effort (LOEs) likely intended to support a decisive action in the next six months.

The Kremlin is intensifying both near- and long-term force-generation efforts.

The Russian military is conserving mobilised personnel for future use - an inflexion from the Kremlin’s initial approach of rushing untrained bodies to the front in the fall of 2022.

Russia is attempting to reinvigorate its defence industrial base.

Putin is re-centralising control of the war effort in Ukraine under the Defence Ministry and appointed Russia’s senior-most uniformed officer, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, as theatre commander.

The Kremlin is intensifying its conditioning of the Russian information space to support the war.

The Kremlin’s effort to prepare for a likely intended decisive strategic action in 2023 is not mutually exclusive with the Kremlin’s efforts to set conditions for a protracted war.

Russia’s decisive strategic action in 2023 can manifest itself in multiple possible courses of action (COAs) that are not mutually exclusive

Key inflexions in ongoing military operations on January 15:

Ukrainian officials specified that a Russian Kh-22 missile struck a residential building in Dnipro City on January 14, killing at least 25–30 civilians. Ukrainian officials clarified inaccurate reporting that Ukrainian air defences may have caused the destruction to the building, noting that Ukraine does not have the capability to shoot down Kh-22 missiles.

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin awarded medals to Wagner Group forces for the capture of Soledar, likely in an ongoing effort to frame the capture of Soledar as a Wagner accomplishment rather than a joint effort with the Russian Armed Forces, as the Russian Defence Ministry previously claimed.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground assaults near Makiivka and Bilohorivka, Luhansk Oblast. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces are transferring Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) off-road vehicles from Russia to Luhansk Oblast, possibly for use in combat.

Russian sources claimed that Russian forces finished clearing Soledar and attacked Ukrainian positions to the north, west, and southwest of the settlement. A Ukrainian source reported that Russian forces captured a mine west of Soledar near Dvorichchia on January 15.

Russian forces continued to attack Bakhmut and areas to the north, east, south, and southwest of the city. Russian forces made marginal territorial gains southwest of Bakhmut near Andriivka.

Ukrainian Kherson Oblast Military Advisor Serhiy Khlan stated that Russian forces increased their presence in occupied Kherson Oblast and that some Wagner Group forces arrived in Kherson Oblast. Russian occupation head of Kherson Oblast Vladimir Saldo claimed that the restoration of the Henichesk-Arabat Spit bridge improved Russian logistics in occupied Kherson Oblast.

A Russian servicemember reportedly detonated a grenade in a building where Russian soldiers quartered in Belgorod Oblast, Russia, possibly in a fratricidal act of resistance against mobilization. A Russian source reported that the grenade attack killed three and injured 10 mobilised personnel.