RUS-UKR war SITREP AUG10 2023 - Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 10, 2023
Cutoff: 101600Zaug23
Key Takeaways:
- The Wagner Group continues to maintain a presence at facilities in Belarus and the status of its rumored withdrawal to Russia remains unclear.
- Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin has yet to comment on these speculations either directly or through intermediary sources as he has done previously, suggesting that Prigozhin may not be entirely at liberty to comment on the future of Wagner.
- Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front and advanced in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on August 10.
- A Russian milblogger accused Russian military personnel of fabricating or embellishing claims of Russian forces destroying Ukrainian vehicles in Ukraine. The milblogger claimed on August 7 that the ”Soviet system of military service” encourages Russian servicemen to report false successes on their missions to please their commanders and claimed that commanders and peers actively discourage Russian military personnel from writing honest, but “dull” and negative reports.[12] The milblogger suggested that Russian soldiers have filmed Russian helicopters and artillery firing on the same, previously damaged Western-provided armored fighting vehicle from different angles and on different days and reported them as separate kills at least three times.[13] The milblogger claimed that everyone in the Russian military knows that servicemen do this and that the Russian military leadership has no intention of stopping servicemen from making false or embellished reports.[14] Russian milbloggers have previously accused Russian attack helicopters of striking already destroyed Ukrainian military equipment and suggested that the Russian MoD may be using these repeated hits to inflate Ukrainian losses.[15] The Kremlin has previously used wildly inflated Ukrainian armored vehicle losses to portray Russian defensive operations as extremely effective.
- Russian forces conducted another series of missile and drone strikes in Ukraine overnight on August 9-10.
- The Kremlin is likely attempting to crypto-nationalize Russian internet giant Yandex to strengthen control over the Russian information space in preparation for the 2024 Russian presidential election.
- The possible transfer of Yandex to affiliates of Russian First Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff Sergey Kiriyenko suggests that Putin seeks to reward Kiriyenko for his personal loyalty, particularly following the June 24 Wagner Group rebellion.
- Affiliates of arrested former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer and ardent ultranationalist Igor Girkin continue to explicitly attack the Kremlin on August 10.
- Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast on August 10 and made some advances.
- Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front and advanced in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area on August 10.
- Russian officials continue to highlight the claimed success of the Russian defense industrial base (DIB).
- A Ukrainian military official reported that Russian forces are co-opting civilian infrastructure for the repression of local populations in the occupied territories.
Details, Maps and Sources:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-10-2023NOTE The ISW website is currently - AUG 13 2023 - down due to expiration of the SSL certificate. You can use this alternative for Details, Maps and sources: https://www.iswresearch.org/2023/08/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment_10.html
