From The Institute for the Study of War:
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 26, 2024
Angelica Evans, Christina Harward, Nicole Wolkov, Grace Mappes, Riley Bailey, and Frederick W. Kagan
April 26, 2024, 6:15pm ET
Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Click here to see ISW’s 3D control of terrain topographic map of Ukraine. Use of a computer (not a mobile device) is strongly recommended for using this data-heavy tool.
Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.
Note: The data cut-off for this product was 12:30pm ET on April 26. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the April 27 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.
Western media continues to report that select US officials have resumed discussing the idea of “freezing the lines” where they are because the latest package of US military assistance to Ukraine may not be enough for Ukraine to regain all its territory.[1] Supporters of the current package have not claimed that it would by itself allow Ukraine to liberate all occupied territory, and the discussion of possible end states of the war is very premature as President Joe Biden signed the bill authorizing the new package only two days ago. US military assistance is currently en route to Ukraine and will take several weeks to arrive to frontline units and have tangible battlefield impacts.[2] Ukrainian forces will first have to leverage the incoming US aid to stabilize the frontlines and stop ongoing Russian advances, particularly in the Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar directions, in the coming weeks. The scale and intensity of the forecasted Summer 2024 Russian offensive operation that will likely begin in June also remains unclear, and the Russian military command may be actively assessing and revising plans for its summer offensive effort to account for facing better-equipped Ukrainian forces.[3] Ukrainian forces will have to defend against the Russian summer offensive effort and prevent Russian forces from making operationally significant advances over the summer months before Ukrainian forces will be in a position to contest the theater-wide initiative and conduct a counteroffensive operation later in 2024 or 2025. Ukrainian forces must also address their ongoing manpower challenges through training new personnel, equipping new units, and reconstituting old units. The exact timeline for these efforts, which will likely play a significant role in determining the timeline for Ukraine‘s future counteroffensive operations, is unclear.[4] ISW continues to assess that sufficient and consistent Western aid will be critical for future Ukrainian counteroffensive efforts, although the US and the West will likely need to be responsive as the Ukrainian military command determines the scope and focus of such operations and relays Ukraine’s needs to Western partners in the weeks and months preceding future counteroffensive operations.[5] Ukraine’s ability to regain all of its territory in the long term rests on numerous future decisions in the West, in the Kremlin, and in Kyiv, and any discussions that treat the prospects of Ukrainian victory or defeat as predetermined outcomes ignore how all involved parties could dynamically alter the course of the war in Ukraine.
Public meetings between officials from Russia, Belarus, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Iran, and North Korea have surged in recent days, with at least 10 high-level bilateral meetings between April 22 and 26, underscoring the deepening multilateral partnership these states are constructing to confront the West. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting of defense ministers in Astana, Kazakhstan on April 26.[6] Shoigu met with PRC Minister of National Defense Dong Jun on the sidelines of the meeting and highlighted the “unprecedented” level of Russo-Sino relations.[7] Shoigu also met with Iranian Defense Minister Mohammed Reza Ashtiani and stated that Russia is prepared to expand Russo-Iranian military and military-technical cooperation.[8] Dong and Ashtiani held a bilateral meeting and called for increased Sino-Iranian cooperation, including in the defense and military spheres.[9] Belarusian Defense Minister Lieutenant General Viktor Khrenin also met with Dong and Ashtiani at the SCO meeting on April 26.[10] The April 26 SCO meeting marked Iran’s first SCO meeting as a member state since joining the organization in July 2023.[11]
The SCO meetings are only the latest in a series of bilateral meetings between Russia, Belarus, the PRC, Iran, and North Korea. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and Special Representative to the Russian President for Middle East and African Countries Mikhail Bogdanov met with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Ali Bagheri Kani in Moscow on April 26.[12] Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev met with PRC Communist Party Politburo member Chen Wenqing on April 23 in St. Petersburg and discussed strengthening cooperation between Russian and PRC intelligence services.[13] Patrushev also met with Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Akbar Ahmadian in St. Petersburg on April 24, and they signed a memorandum of understanding between the two countries’ security councils.[14] A North Korean delegation led by Minister for External Economic Relations Yun Jong Ho traveled to Iran on April 23.[15] Head of the Belarusian Ministry of Defense’s (MoD) Department of International Military Cooperation Major General Valery Revenko met with Iranian Deputy Minister of Defense and rector of the Malek Ashtar University of Technology Mehdi Jafari on April 22 in Minsk.[16] Although the details and results of these various bilateral meetings are unclear, the overt increase in their number and frequency is notable and demonstrates the group’s increased eagerness to publicly display its military and political cooperation in its competition and confrontation against the West.
PRC officials claimed that NATO bears responsibility for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine amid meetings between PRC officials and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on April 26. Blinken met with PRC President Xi Jinping and stated that the PRC’s support for the Russian defense industry is enabling Russia’s war effort and undermining European and transatlantic security.[17] Blinken noted that the PRC is supplying Russia’s defense industry with machine tools, microelectronics, nitrocellulose (an intermediary good used in producing gunpowder and explosives), and other dual-use items and warned that the US is prepared to act if the PRC continues to support the Russian defense industry.[18] ISW has recently observed reports that Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB) continues to rely heavily on Chinese-produced machine tool components and electronics.[19] PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Wang Wenbin stated, likely in response to Blinken, that Russia imports more than 60 percent of weapons components and dual-use items from the US and other Western countries.[20] Wang added that NATO bears “unshirkable” responsibility for the ”Ukraine crisis“ and that the PRC continues to promote peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.[21] Wang’s statement is noticeably stronger than previous PRC statements about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that have portrayed the PRC as an objective and impartial mediator for future peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and Kremlin newswire TASS framed Wang’s statements as placing ”direct responsibility” for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on NATO.[22] The Kremlin will likely seize on stronger PRC rhetoric about the war in Ukraine to frame the PRC as supporting Russia’s objectives in Ukraine, as it has previously attempted to do.[23]
Ukraine’s Western partners continue to provide Ukraine with immediate and longer-term military assistance, particularly for Ukraine’s air defenses. The US Department of Defense (DoD) announced on April 26 a new package of military assistance to Ukraine worth $6 billion as part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI).[24] The package includes Patriot air defense munitions, National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) munitions, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) munitions, artillery ammunition, and equipment to integrate Ukrainian and Western air defense systems. The US DoD stated that the announcement marks the beginning of the “contracting process,” and the timeline of the production and delivery of these weapons is unclear at this time. Spanish outlet El Pais reported on April 26 that Spain will send a ”limited” number of Patriot missiles to Ukraine.[25] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on April 26 at the Ramstein format meeting that Ukraine needs long-range weapons and air defense systems and reported that Russian forces have used more than 9,000 guided glide bombs against Ukraine since the start of 2024.[26] US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin observed that the Patriot is not a silver bullet and that many factors will determine the course of the fighting.[27] No single weapons system is a silver bullet, to be sure, but the Patriot is one of the very few air defense systems able to engage Russian ballistic missiles and also to hit Russian fighter-bombers outside the range of Russian glide bombs. ISW continues to assess that Ukraine’s degraded air defense capabilities have allowed Russian aviation to heavily degrade Ukrainian defenses along the front with glide bomb strikes.[28] Zelensky stated that although Russian forces have seized the battlefield initiative in the past six months, Ukrainian forces will still be able to “not only stabilize the front but also advance.”[29]
The Ukrainian military has reportedly pulled US-provided M1A1 Abrams tanks from the frontline in part because of the widespread threat of Russian drones and other strikes. The Associated Press (AP) reported on April 26, citing two unspecified US military officials, that Ukraine has removed Abrams tanks from the frontline partly because Russia’s widespread drone usage has made it too difficult for Ukrainian forces to operate Abrams without Russian forces detecting and striking Abrams with drones.[30] Ukrainian drone operators recently told the Washington Post that the number of drones that both Russian and Ukrainian forces use has made the battlefield “almost transparent” given that up to 100 Russian and Ukrainian reconnaissance and attack drones can operate simultaneously within a 10-kilometer radius.[31] Any armored vehicles that Russian or Ukrainian forces may field on the frontline are visible to each other’s reconnaissance drones, so Ukrainian forces are likely prioritizing efforts to protect the limited number of Abrams tanks they currently possess. Any armored vehicles on the battlefield without active protection and counter-drone systems are highly vulnerable to enemy drone, artillery, and anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) strikes. The Russian government has hyper-fixated on Russia’s ability to destroy Western-made weapon systems to posture Russian military equipment as superior to Western designs. Russia will soon open an exhibition of captured Western equipment in Moscow and has given military and monetary awards to Russian soldiers who destroyed Western armored vehicles.[32]
Russian authorities continue efforts to expand the definition of prosecutable anti-war sentiment to portray Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine as opposing Russia itself. The Russian Ministry of Justice appealed to the Russian Supreme Court on April 26 to recognize the alleged “Anti-Russian Separatist Movement” and its “structural divisions” as an extremist organization, which would allow Russian authorities to prosecute Russians for belonging, supporting, financing, or spreading the ideology of this movement.[33] Russian opposition media outlets largely responded to the appeal by noting that no such organization exists, and Russian authorities have previously designated other non-existent organizations meant to encompass broader “social movements” as “extremist.”[34] The Russian Ministry of Justice described the “Anti-Russian Separatist Movement” as an “international social movement [aiming] to destroy the multinational unity and territorial integrity of Russia,” indicating that Russian authorities likely intend to use this new extremist designation to further prosecute anti-war sentiment among Russians and within occupied Ukraine, particularly movements opposing Russia’s occupation of Ukraine and movements within ethnic minority communities advocating for better treatment of Russian military personnel and mobilized personnel from these communities.[35] The “Anti-Russian Separatist Movement” extremist designation also sets informational conditions to further paint Russians who oppose the war or Russian imperialism as actually opposing the Kremlin and Russia itself.
Key Takeaways:
- Western media continues to report that select US officials have resumed discussing the idea of “freezing the lines” where they are because the latest package of US military assistance to Ukraine may not be enough for Ukraine to regain all its territory. Supporters of the current package have not claimed that it would by itself allow Ukraine to liberate all occupied territory, and the discussion of possible end states of the war is very premature as President Joe Biden signed the bill authorizing the new package only two days ago.
- Public meetings between officials from Russia, Belarus, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Iran, and North Korea have surged in recent days, with at least 10 high-level bilateral meetings between April 22 and 26, underscoring the deepening multilateral partnership these states are constructing to confront the West.
- PRC officials claimed that NATO bears responsibility for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine amid meetings between PRC officials and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on April 26.
- Ukraine’s Western partners continue to provide Ukraine with immediate and longer-term military assistance, particularly for Ukraine’s air defenses.
- The Ukrainian military has reportedly pulled US-provided M1A1 Abrams tanks from the frontline in part because of the widespread threat of Russian drones and other strikes.
- Russian authorities continue efforts to expand the definition of prosecutable anti-war sentiment to portray Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine as opposing Russia itself.
- Russian forces recently made a confirmed advance northwest of Avdiivka, and Ukrainian forces made a confirmed advance in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast, although this advance was likely not recent.
- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tatar-Bashkort service Idel Realii reported on April 26 that Samara Oblast is forming a new “Batyr” volunteer motorized rifle battalion.
- The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) issued a joint statement on behalf of 45 member states stating that Russia has arbitrarily detained thousands of Ukrainian civilians in occupied Ukraine and subjected them to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
Go here to read the rest. Drones are being used effectively as anti-tank weapons. The age of drone military dominance is temporarily upon us.
