Putin also attempted to scare NATO states away from supplying Ukraine with F-16 fighter aircraft and attempted to deter Western audiences from further financial commitments to Ukraine’s and NATO’s security.
Putin’s March 27 statements are neither new nor surprising and best illustrate how the Kremlin routinely overwhelms the Western information space, often with irrelevant or decontextualized truths rather than with outright misinformation or disinformation, to shape global perceptions and advance its own long-term objectives. These statements should be analyzed alongside endless instances of the Kremlin reusing the same narratives, rather than as standalone inflections. Overwhelming, confusing, and manipulating the Western information space and perceptions are part of the Russian strategy of “reflexive control” — or a way of transmitting bases for decision-making to an opponent so that they freely come to a pre-determined decision.[31] Putin’s statements target the US and Western perception of costs, priorities, risks, and alignment with values to achieve the desired outcome of delaying Western military aid provisions to Ukraine or prevent NATO from recognizing and responding to the potential Russian threat in a timely manner. Putin’s statements and other Kremlin information operations are part of Russia’s principal effort to force the US and the West to accept and reason from Russian premises to decisions that advance Russia’s interests, as ISW has recently assessed.[32]
www.understandingwar.org/...
With low troop density being offset by technologically advanced sensors and indirect fires, current conditions are again favoring the defender. Due to increased dispersion, the span of control of individual commanders is expanding, especially at lower tactical levels. This complicates command and control, while reducing the ability to concentrate fighting power from dispersed positions to establish a main effort during offensive actions. The war in Ukraine has currently entered a phase of attritional and positional warfare, characterized by small-scale assaults on prepared positions. While the weapons and technologies are dramatically more advanced, the challenge remains the same as it was during World War I: establishing combined arms formations at the lowest tactical levels, providing them the right fire support to enable maneuver, and reestablishing conditions that enable massed and concentrated fighting power. Ukrainian forces did not have the means of overcoming that challenge—the right mix of tactics and technology—during their 2023 counteroffensive. Whether either side’s forces have made progress toward solving this tactical crisis will influence the shape of the war in 2024.
mwi.westpoint.edu/...
Russian Air, Missile, and Drone Campaign (Russian Objective: Target Ukrainian military and civilian infrastructure in the rear and on the frontline)
Russian forces conducted a series of missile and drone strikes against Ukraine on the night of March 27 to 28. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces launched three Kh-22 cruise missiles and a Kh-31P anti-radar missile from the Black Sea, an S-300 missile at Donetsk Oblast, and 28 Shahed-136/131 drones from Kursk Oblast and occupied Cape Chauda, Crimea.[73] The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Ukrainian forces shot down 26 Shahed drones over Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhia oblasts, and Ukrainian officials reported that the three Kh-22 cruise missiles and the Kh-31P cruise missile lost their combat capabilities over the Black Sea.[74] Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration Head Oleh Synehubov stated that Russian drone strikes damaged civilian infrastructure in Kharkiv City.[75]
www.understandingwar.org/...
- Ukraine is currently preventing Russian forces from making significant tactical gains along the entire frontline, but continued delays in US security assistance will likely expand the threat of Russian operational success, including in non-linear and possibly exponential ways.
- The continued degradation of Ukraine’s air defense umbrella provides one of the most immediate avenues through which Russian forces could generate non-linear operational impacts.
- Russia’s ability to conduct opportunistic but limited offensive actions along Ukraine’s international border with Russia offers Russia further opportunities to constrain Ukrainian manpower and materiel, but Western aid provisions and Ukrainian efforts to address manpower challenges would ease the impacts of such Russian efforts.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to make sensationalized statements as part of Russia’s ongoing reflexive control campaign, which aims to deter further Western military aid provisions to Ukraine and deflect attention from the growing Russian force posturing against NATO.
- Putin’s March 27 statements are neither new nor surprising, and best illustrate how the Kremlin routinely overwhelms the Western information space, often with irrelevant or decontextualized truths rather than with outright misinformation or disinformation, to shape global perceptions and advance its own long-term objectives.
- The Russian Investigative Committee unsurprisingly claimed that it has evidence tying Ukraine to the March 22 Crocus City Hall attack amid continued Kremlin efforts to link Ukraine and the West to the terrorist attack to generate more domestic support for the war in Ukraine.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed concern for heightened ethnic tension in Russian society following the Crocus City Hall attacks and may be falsely blaming Ukraine and the West for the Crocus City Hall attack in order to divert domestic attention away from ethnic tensions.
- Ukrainian drone strikes against oil refineries in Russia are reportedly forcing Russia to import gasoline from Belarus.
- An independent investigation found that international information operation campaigns linked to deceased Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin remained active, despite the Russian government shutting down media companies and organizations overtly linked to Prigozhin after his death.
- Senior Russian officials are intensifying their victim-blaming of Armenian leadership as Armenia continues to distance itself from security relations with Russia after the Kremlin abandoned Armenia to its fate as it lost Nagorno-Karabakh.
- Russian forces made confirmed advances near Donetsk City.
- Russia continues efforts to source ballistic missiles and other weapons from North Korea for use in Ukraine.