Russian offensive pace increases but remains slow – ISW

Analysts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) have indicated an increase in the Russian offensive pace in Ukraine. However, experts believe that this pace remains slow and is consistent with positional warfare.

Source: ISW

Quote from ISW: "The rate of Russian advances in Ukraine has increased in recent weeks but remains slow and consistent with positional warfare rather than with rapid mechanised manoeuvre – emphasising how generally stagnant Russian advances have been after over two and half years of war."

Details: Recent Western reports that compare the rate of Russian advances in September 2024 to those at the beginning of the full-scale invasion are quite misleading. 

According to ISW, Russian forces achieved an average advance of 1,265 square kilometres per day in March 2022, which is approximately 90 times greater than the estimated 14 square kilometres per day that ISW reports for September 2024.

Quote from ISW: "Rapid Russian advances deep into Ukrainian territory, including the temporary seizure of large portions of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts characterised the first month of the Russian full-scale invasion, whereas more recent Russian advances have been characterised by small-scale, localised, tactical advances."

Details: Russian forces have recently made gains in Ukraine's east, but framing these gains in comparison to the initial significant Russian penetration at the beginning of the full-scale invasion is misleading.

Quote from ISW: "For example, Russian forces seized the settlement of Vuhledar as of 1 October 2024, have continued to advance north and northwest of Vuhledar and have made significant tactical gains in and near Selydove (southeast of Pokrovsk) over the course of the past week.

These respective advances are tactically significant but do not represent a general increase in the pace of Russian advances across the frontline, much of which remains relatively stagnant, nor are they within two orders of magnitude of the rate of Russian advance in the first stage of the war."

Details: ISW believes that the current pace of Russian advances aligns more closely with ISW's recent assessment, which suggests that the Russian command has likely instructed its forces to markedly intensify their mechanised attacks across the theatre before the full onset of muddy ground conditions during the autumn months.

To quote the ISW’s Key Takeaways on 29 October:

• The rate of Russian advances in Ukraine has increased in recent weeks but remains slow and consistent with positional warfare rather than with rapid mechanised manoeuvre – emphasising how generally stagnant Russian advances have been after over two and half years of war.
• Russian leader Vladimir Putin attempted to use an annual Russian nuclear deterrence exercise to further boilerplate nuclear sabre-rattling information operations that aim to influence Western decision making.
• Recent Russian polling suggests that Russian domestic support for local government entities has somewhat declined over the past year, most likely in response to increased crypto-mobilisation force generation efforts at the regional level.
• Russian officials and milbloggers are conducting information operations that falsely portray the Georgian opposition's peaceful and legal challenges to the conduct of the 26 October parliamentary election results as a Western- and Ukrainian-sponsored illegal coup d'état.
• The Georgian protests have been peaceful and legal – far from the Russian claims of an illegal coup.
• These concerted Russian efforts to baselessly discredit the Georgian pro-Western opposition and civil society are part of a common Kremlin tactic aimed at framing the valid and legal concerns of pro-Western political entities in the post-Soviet space as illegitimate and violent.
• Ukrainian forces recently advanced in Toretsk and Russian forces made advanced near Kupiansk, Pokrovsk, Kurakhove and southwest of the city of Donetsk.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence (MOD) continues to rely on Russia's prison population to replace depleted Russian units on the frontline.

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