ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 2, 2023

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Poor weather conditions continue to slow the pace of Ukrainian and Russian combat operations across the entire frontline but have not completely halted them.
• Russian forces launched another series of Shahed 136/131 drone and missile strikes targeting southern Ukraine overnight on December 1-2.
• Ukrainian and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials reported that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) completely disconnected from all external power sources for five and a half hours on the night of December 1 to 2, marking the plant’s eighth complete black out - all under Russian occupation.
• The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned three third party entities involved in the transport of Russian crude oil above the G7 price cap.
• The Russia Ministry of Defense (MoD) signaled that it likely intends to continue relying on crypto-mobilization recruitment schemes for any potential increase in the size of the Russian military.
• The Kremlin’s policy towards the role of migrants in bolstering Russia’s industrial capacity continues to be inconsistent.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s November 30 threat against Moldova may have emboldened certain pro-Russian actors to attempt to sow political instability and division in Moldova.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, near Avdiivka, west of Donetsk City, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced near Avdiivka.
• Radio Svoboda’s “Schemes” and “Systems” investigative projects published a joint investigation on December 1 detailing how the Main Directorate of the Russian General Staff (GRU) created the “Redut” private military company (PMC) to recruit thousands of Russians for irregular combat service in Ukraine.
• Ukrainian partisans reportedly conducted a partisan attack against Russian military personnel in occupied Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast, on December 1.

Authors: Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Angelica Evans, and Frederick W. Kagan.

See the original here.