ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 27

Key Takeaways

• Russian forces currently appear able to sustain only two significant offensive operations in Ukraine, both in Donetsk Oblast, and the Russian offensive remains likely to culminate before seizing additional significant population centers.
• Ukrainian forces may have launched a localized counterattack southwest of Izyum.
• Russian forces attacked settlements east of Siversk and northeast and southeast of Bakhmut.
• Ground fighting is ongoing north of Kharkiv City.
• Ukrainian forces struck the Antonivskyi Bridge for the third time in ten days on July 27, likely rendering it unusable.
• The Mari El Republic north of Kazan sent two volunteer battalions to train and is forming a third battalion to deploy to Ukraine.
• Russian occupation authorities are importing Russians to work in occupied territories due to a lack of Ukrainian collaborators.
• Mariupol occupation authorities continue withholding humanitarian aid to force civilians to cooperate with and work for the occupation administration.

Russian forces appear able to sustain only two significant offensive operations in Ukraine at this time, one attempting to seize Siversk and the other advancing on Bakhmut. These operations have focused on advances in the Siversk, Donetsk Oblast, direction from Verkhnokamianka and Bilohorivka and in the Bakhmut direction from the areas of Novoluhanske and the Vuhlehirska Thermal Power Plant since the end of the operational pause on July 16. Russian forces have committed enough resources to conduct near-daily ground assaults and to seize territory on these two axes but have been unable to sustain a similar offensive operational tempo or to make similar territorial gains elsewhere in Ukraine. The Russian offensive, therefore, remains likely to culminate before seizing any other major urban areas in Ukraine.

Authors: Kateryna Stepanenko, Grace Mappes, Katherine Lawlor, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan

See the full report here.