The Russian military command is misleading President Vladimir Putin about the scale of its gains in northern Ukraine, claiming that Russian forces are making significant advances in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). In its Russian offensive campaign assessment published early Saturday, the Washington-based think tank said available battlefield evidence does not corroborate Russian claims of advances in northern Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts.
ISW analysts note that Russian forces have claimed almost daily, since at least July 22, that they have captured a new settlement in the Kharkiv or Sumy regions. On July 29, Russia claimed to have captured Nova Sich; on July 30 it claimed Mala Slobidka and Mohrytsia in the Sumy region, as well as Virovka in the Kharkiv region.
“ISW has not observed indications that Russian forces have conducted the necessary quantity of force redeployments, equipment concentration, or intensified offensive operations commensurate with the amount of territory they are claiming to have seized in recent days,” the report says.
Ukraine’s Defense Forces have rejected Russian claims that its troops captured Mala Slobidka, Mohrytsia and Nova Sich. Russian infantry continues to conduct infiltration missions in the north, while Russian servicemen record videos and use artificial intelligence to alter or create footage showing soldiers holding flags in settlements that Russian forces may have entered only briefly, in order to falsely claim they captured them, ISW says.
The Kremlin is using these exaggerated claims as part of its ongoing cognitive warfare effort to falsely portray Russian forces as advancing across the battlefield, to convince the United States and other Western countries that Russia’s war is progressing so successfully that the West should abandon its support for Ukraine.
At the same time, Ukrainian forces are carrying out attacks in some areas of northern Ukraine, contradicting Russia’s narrative of an unopposed advance across the entire theater. Ukrainian forces have liberated Odradne in the Kharkiv region, according to ISW’s assessment, and launched counterattacks near Nova Sich, Mohrytsia, Ivolzhanske and Pysarivka, slowing Russian advances.
The report also details other fabricated capture claims. Russia recently claimed to have “captured” Nova Sich in the Sumy region, although the village remains under Ukrainian control, and falsely claimed to have “occupied” Rizdvyanka in the Zaporizhzhia region before the claim was debunked. Moscow also claimed to have captured Hlushkivka in the Kharkiv region, which Ukraine’s military immediately denied. Prominent Kremlin-co-opted milbloggers are notably refuting the official Russian military narrative about the situation in northern Ukraine.
The assessment comes as Russia launched 255 drones against Ukraine overnight and as Kyiv’s forces push back in the north. ISW separately reported that Ukrainian forces recently advanced in the Borova direction and that Ukraine’s F-Drones delivered the first 2,000 FPV drones to the US military under the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance Program.
Sources: RBC-Ukraine, Kyiv Post, Institute for the Study of War.
Author: Russia Desk
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