26.11 War Analytics

Psychological Attack: Russia's 2024 offensive could be considered a failure if not for the demoralisation of Ukraine and its Western allies

Over the past two and a half months, the Russian army has achieved its most notable territorial gains since the initial phase of the war. Russian forces are advancing toward Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Donbas, creating the impression of widespread tactical success and provoking alarmist reports in the Western press.

By adjusting its tactics for offensive operations and combat, Russia has indeed managed to finally leverage its significant advantages in manpower and equipment. However, the approximately 2500-4000 square kilometres that Russia has brought under its control in Ukraine in 2024 amount to about 0.5% of Ukraine's total territory – a much smaller area than that regained by the Ukrainian Armed Forces during their counteroffensive in the fall of 2022. Russia remains far from achieving its medium-term objectives: it controls only about two-thirds of Donetsk Oblast, approximately 70% of Zaporizhzhia, and around 60% of Kherson.

At the same time, Russia is paying a heavy price for its autumn advances near Vuhledar and Selydove, with unsustainable losses in manpower and equipment. In September and October alone, these losses amounted to approximately 80,000 wounded and killed on the battlefield and 695 pieces of equipment – the highest rate of losses since October 2022.

The perception of success in the Russian offensive and a serious threat to Ukraine's frontlines is shaped less by the battlefield situation and more by the demoralisation of Ukraine’s coalition of supporters, including its Western allies. The Ukrainian army’s shortages in manpower and equipment are exacerbated by complete uncertainty over the scale of future military and financial assistance and persistent discussions among Western allies about freezing the conflict and initiating ‘peace talks’. All of this exerts a powerful demobilising effect on Ukraine’s army, leadership, and society, giving Russia a psychological edge and creating an illusion of military success that does not align with the reality of the modest territorial gains relative to the heavy losses incurred.

The Russian Offensive — 2024: results and causes

The Russian army has been conducting an offensive in Ukraine for ten months, achieving increasingly noticeable progress in recent weeks. According to the OSINT project WarMapper, which maintains a combat map of Ukraine based on verified information, Russian forces have captured 2,064 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory from February 2024, when the active phase of the offensive began, through the end of October.

The Russian army maintained a high pace of advancement into November, seizing an additional 162.4 square kilometres in the first 10 days of the month, as calculated by the publication ‘Agency’ based on maps from the OSINT project. According to ‘Meduza’’s estimates, the total territory captured since February amounts to nearly 4,000 square kilometres as of 25 November, with 1200 square kilometres added in just the last month (since 27 October).

Territory gained by Russian forces, February-November 2024, square kilometres

According to military analysts interviewed by The New York Times, these gains were the result of Russia's active use of powerful guided bombs, the poor quality of Ukrainian fortifications, and changes in the tactics of the Russian army have allowed it to leverage its advantages in manpower and weaponry. Since late 2023, the Russian side has consistently applied pressure on multiple sections of the front, stretching Ukrainian forces thin. OSINT analyst Pasi Paroinen likens this to a game of ‘Whac-A-Mole’, where new crisis points arise faster than the Ukrainian army can respond and manage them.

The results of this sustained pressure became evident only in the second half of 2024, when the pace of the Russian offensive accelerated sharply. From early August onward, 68% of the total territorial gains by the Russian army (more than 1500 square kilometres, according to WarMapper) or 60% (2360 square kilometres, per Meduza) were achieved. In October, the Russian army captured the city of Selydove, located south of Pokrovsk, as well as the fortress city of Vuhledar. It continues to exert significant pressure on Kurakhove, the capture of which would allow the Russian forces to begin encircling Pokrovsk from the flanks. The sharp acceleration in Russian advances indicates that Ukrainian forces are abandoning positions. Near Novoselky, 'Russian assault groups advanced about 10 kilometres through open steppe from the direction of Vuhledar and Shakhtarsk, despite having previously taken the same distance to the south of Velyka Novosilka only after heavy fighting over the course of a year,' Meduza notes.

Seizing Pokrovsk and aligning the front line in western Donetsk Oblast remain key objectives of Russia's offensive, advancing its larger goal of taking the remainder of Donetsk Oblast. The offensive toward Pokrovsk began in 2023 but intensified significantly this spring following the capture of Avdiivka, against the backdrop of acute manpower and equipment shortages faced by Ukraine's Armed Forces. However, in May-June, when the Russian army’s battlefield advantage peaked – such as a reported 20:1 superiority in artillery fire, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian command refrained from launching a frontal assault on Pokrovsk.

This decision was influenced by a sharp increase in armored vehicle losses due to Ukraine’s effective use of drones. Another factor behind the shift to positional operations around Pokrovsk, Kurakhove, and Vuhledar was likely Moscow's reassessment of the battlefield situation. Support from China, Iran, and North Korea, along with a temporary pause in US military aid to Ukraine, gave the Russian army a notable advantage in the war of attrition. Russia also adapted its offensive tactics, increasingly deploying small groups moving under the cover of tree lines. Experts at ISW believe this tactic has been a critical factor in its recent advances. In positional battles near Kurakhove and Vuhledar, Russian mechanised operations have achieved greater success, despite heavy equipment losses. Unlike the failed frontal assaults toward Pokrovsk, these mechanised offensives have gradually pushed the front line forward with each attack.

Military analyst Ridwan Bari Urcosta attributes Russia's recent successes on the front lines to the creation of two large army groups (referred to as 'battering rams'). These groups use a combination of frontal and flanking maneuvers to gradually break through Ukrainian fortifications in the Donbas. The first and primary 'battering ram' was formed near Avdiivka with the goal of splitting the Donbas theater of operations into sections by severing key communication lines of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF). To achieve this, the 'Avdiivka battering ram,' which has become a wedge about 30 km wide and over 30 km deep, aims to fragment the Ukrainian front into separate segments, complicating coordination among them. In addition to the Avdiivka effort, Russia has deployed several additional groups near Toretsk, New York, Kurakhove, and Staromlynivka to create an encirclement threat for the UAF and force them to retreat.

The second area where Russia has concentrated significant forces is Bakhmut. Here, they threaten to advance along the Siverskyi Donets–Donbas canal and push through Chasiv Yar and Kostiantynivka. Success in this direction would mark a critical shift in the war in Donbas, bringing the Russian army closer to Ukraine's final line of fortified cities, including Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. However, due to resource shortages, the Russian army has yet to establish a second 'battering ram' comparable to the one near Avdiivka. If this objective were achieved, it could lead to the formation of a grouping of two or three armies in Donbas, resembling the front systems the Soviet Union used during World War II, according to the expert.

Success or failure?

Russia's primary success, however, is not on the battlefield but in shaping the perception of the frontline situation within the global community, the West, and Ukraine itself. A weakening of Western support for Ukraine and a decline in morale within the Ukrainian army have become key components of this success, while the offensive itself could be described as a military failure.

According to WarMapper’s calculations, Russia expanded its control in Ukraine in 2024 by approximately 2250 square kilometres, which constitutes 0.37% of the country’s total internationally recognised territory. By Meduza’s estimates, the figure is 3,965 square kilometres, or 0.65% of Ukrainian territory. For context, during the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, they regained control of 8,800 square kilometres in Kharkiv Oblast and 1170 square kilometres in Kherson Oblast – a total of nearly 10,000 square kilometres. This is 4.5 times larger (per WarMapper) or 2.5 times larger (per Meduza) than the territory lost to Russia during its 2024 offensive. At the peak of the initial invasion phase, Russian forces controlled an estimated 27% of Ukraine’s territory, including Donbas and Crimea. Following the 2024 offensive, the total area of occupied Ukrainian territory increased to 18.4% of the country’s total territory in WarMapper’s assessment, and to 18.7% in Meduza’s version.

In both cases, despite the sharp acceleration of the offensive in the past three months, the gains made by Russia in 2024 do not change the overall assessment of this phase of the war as a stalemate – a situation in which even extremely intense military actions result in only minor shifts in the front line. Russia continues to control roughly two-thirds of Donetsk Oblast, about 70% of Zaporizhzhia, and approximately 60% of Kherson. This means it has made only marginal progress toward its medium-term goal of full control over the territories already formally ‘annexed’.

A gain of 2000-4000 square kilometres could be considered a failure for Russia, given the resources expended to achieve it. In September and October alone, Russian forces reportedly lost around 80,000 soldiers on the battlefield, according to estimates by the ISW, while advancing over an area of just 1500 square kilometres, according to Meduza’s calculations – an average loss of 53 soldiers per square kilometre. Meanwhile, it appears Russia recruited only 60,000-70,000 new contract soldiers in the same period. Thus, the pace of recruitment has fallen short of replacing losses on a one-to-one basis, even with significantly increased contract signing bonuses (→ Re: Russia: Peculiarities of hybrid mobilisation). A law passed by the State Duma in mid-November, which allows soldiers fighting in Ukraine to have overdue debts of up to 10 million rubles written off, further indicates the Kremlin's increasing difficulty in sustaining manpower.

According to a joint project by the BBC and Mediazona, confirmed losses based on open-source analysis over the past two months have exceeded the daily average for 2023 by 1.6 times, marking the highest intensity of losses since the invasion began. The UK Ministry of Defence estimates that as of mid-October, Russia has lost nearly 650,000 personnel, with daily casualty rates (killed and wounded) exceeding 1200 in recent months.

The Russian army's losses in equipment are also extremely high. Agency writes, based on an analysis of OSINT data from the defence analytics website Oryx, that the Russian army lost 695 pieces of equipment in October alone, including 253 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), 103 tanks, 41 armored personnel carriers (APCs), four aircraft, and one helicopter. This represents the highest confirmed level of equipment losses since October 2022, when Russian forces retreated from Kharkiv Oblast.

The rate of domestic production of military equipment and ammunition in Russia does not compensate for the current level of losses, according to Foreign Policy experts. Even with artillery shell production ramped up to 3 million units per year, Russia falls short of its needs. RUSI estimates that the Russian army used 12 million shells in Ukraine in 2022 alone. According to The Times, about half of the artillery shells used by Russia in Ukraine are supplied by North Korea. According to Foreign Policy, Russia is losing approximately 320 tank and artillery barrels and around 155 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) per month, while producing roughly 20 of the former and 17 of the latter.

In other words, Russia is conducting its current offensive under extreme strain on its capabilities, relying on the supply of weapons and even manpower from its allies, while achieving only modest successes. The Russian offensive is more of a psychological and political success than a military one. A key component of this success is the demobilisation of Ukraine’s allies, which in turn leads to the demobilisation of Ukrainian society and the military. As the ISW reminds us, Ukrainian forces have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to develop and utilise asymmetric capabilities on the battlefield. However, to fully capitalise on these capabilities, Ukraine must first address its own problems – chiefly the shortage of personnel and weapons, as well as the development of a new defence strategy and resource allocation.

Nevertheless, complete uncertainty over Western aid and ongoing discussions about freezing the conflict or entering ‘peace negotiations’ exert a demoralising influence throughout the Ukrainian military hierarchy. These factors exacerbate issues with recruitment and discipline within Ukraine’s armed forces. It can be said that President Putin’s successes in Ukraine in 2024 rest on a combination of factors: a recruitment campaign that brought over 300,000 additional personnel into the war, military aid from allies – primarily North Korea and Iran – and psychological and informational assistance from the West itself. Western indecision and rhetoric have inadvertently made it easier for the Kremlin to demoralise the Ukrainian army.