Key Takeaways from ISW:
- A Russian occupation official claimed that Russian forces seized the entirety of Luhansk Oblast for the second time during Russia’s full-scale invasion, but Russian milbloggers denied this claim.
- The Russian military command is modernizing Russian training grounds to include motorcycle tracks and reportedly intends to purchase up to 200,000 Chinese-made motorcycles for the Russian military.
- Ukrainian forces continue to strike defense industrial enterprises in Russia’s rear.
- The Ukrainian military command continues to transition to a corps structure and improve its training system.
- Russian-Azerbaijani relations continue to deteriorate over a number of smaller-scale incidents in recent days, inflaming unresolved disputes over the December 2024 Russian shoot down of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane.
- An investigation by the Center for Human Rights in Armed Conflict found that Russian forces were responsible for a 2022 strike that killed Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) in occupied Donetsk Oblast, as ISW assessed at the time.
- Ukrainian forces advanced near Pokrovsk. Russian forces advanced near Toretsk and Novopavlivka.
Authors: Christina Harward, Angelica Evans, Jessica Sobieski, Daria Novikov, and Frederick W. Kagan.
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