ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 9, 2025

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Ukraine’s Western partners reiterated their support for Ukraine and their commitment to the development of Ukraine’s defense industrial base (DIB) at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on January 9.
• Ukraine’s Western partners announced additional military aid packages at Ramstein Air Base on January 9.
• Russian elites and high-ranking security officials are reportedly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to wage a full-scale war in Ukraine with half measures and are increasingly concerned with Putin’s timeline to end the war.
• High-ranking Russian security officials appear to be assessing that Russia needs to intensify its war in Ukraine rather than seek an exit via negotiations.
• Russian elites’ reported diagnosis of the main problem with Russia’s conduct of the war is inaccurate, as Russia’s failure to restore maneuver to the battlefield — not a shortage of manpower — is the main factor causing Russia’s relatively slow rate of advance.
• Meduza‘s report indicates that Russia’s security elite — like Putin himself — is uninterested in a negotiated and peaceful resolution to the war in the near future.
• A Russian opposition investigative outlet reported that Russian authorities have turned a pretrial detention center (SIZO) in Taganrog, Voronezh Oblast into a torture center for Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) and imprisoned Ukrainian civilians.
• The UN condemned the recent surge in Russian executions of Ukrainian POWs.
• The Armenian government approved a draft law on January 9, beginning Armenia’s accession process into the EU.
• Russian forces recently advanced near Borova and Pokrovsk and in Kursk Oblast.
• Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Sudzha.
• Russian officials continue to indicate that the Kremlin intends to further militarize the Russian government and Russian society in the long term.

Authors: Christina Harward, Grace Mappes, Nate Trotter, William Runkel, Angelica Evans, and Frederick W. Kagan.

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