UKRAINE: THE SITUATION 523 - JULY 29, 2023

Parts of the ultra-nationalist information space of Russian war supporters seem to be aligning with Kremlin's efforts to portray the Ukrainian counteroffensive as a failure by increasingly overvaluing Ukrainian losses and writing less about Russia's losses and challenges than before.

Prominent Russian milbloggers have increasingly inaccurately portrayed the Ukrainian counteroffensives as a series of failed Ukrainian attacks along the entire contact line. Russian milbloggers spread visual material on July 29 showing a single Russian tank defeating an entire Ukrainian company with armored vehicles, as if the event had just occurred; in fact, the footage dates back to June 7 and shows Russian artillery units attacking the Ukrainian convoy. Russian sources have previously spread old footage to support the claim that Ukrainian forces suffered significant losses in armored vehicles, and the expansion of the footage on July 29 suggests that Russian sources deliberately expand old footage to support the Kremlin's narrative.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently claimed that Ukrainian forces lost 39 armored vehicles in the few days of fighting in the western Zaporizhzhia Oblast - a remarkable exaggeration of Ukrainian losses during the Ukrainian counteroffensive. ISW has previously noted that the Kremlin is likely changing its policy regarding war reporting to downplay the chances of a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and portray itself as an effective manager of war efforts. Russian milbloggers continue to report on local Ukrainian advances and some problems with Russian defensive operations, but the broader operational depiction of the Ukrainian counteroffensive by the war-supporting Russian information space aligns with the likely shift in the Kremlin's depiction of the counteroffensive.

The full Russian Offensive Update 523 is available directly from UNDERSTANDING WAR.

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