Christina Harward, Nicole Wolkov, Angelica Evans, Riley Bailey, and Karolina Hird

April 4, 2024, 6:35pm ET

Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

Click here to see ISW’s 3D control of terrain topographic map of Ukraine. Use of a computer (not a mobile device) is strongly recommended for using this data-heavy tool.

Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 12:30pm ET on April 4 ISW will cover subsequent reports in the April 5 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov claimed that NATO and Russia are in “direct confrontation,” likely as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to intensify existing information operations meant to force the West into self-deterrence. Peskov claimed on April 4 that relations between Russia and NATO have “slipped to the level of direct confrontation” and that NATO is “already involved in the conflict surrounding Ukraine.”[1] Peskov accused NATO of moving towards Russia’s borders, likely referencing Finland and Sweden’s recent accessions to the alliance, and claimed that NATO is expanding its military infrastructure closer to Russia. Russian officials have long attempted to frame NATO and the West as an existential threat to Russia as part of the Kremlin’s justifications for its war in Ukraine.[2] Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on March 18 that a full-scale war between NATO and Russia is undesirable but possible.[3] Peskov’s repeated claims that NATO and Russia are already in “direct confrontation” represents an intensification of this ongoing narrative but is likely still part of Russia‘s reflexive control campaign that uses threatening language to delay and influence important decisions regarding Western support for Ukraine.[4] This Kremlin narrative is also likely an attempt to pose NATO’s defensive activity in response to Russia’s outright aggression as provocative.[5] ISW continues to assess that Russia has been preparing for a potential conventional war with NATO, including through ongoing conventional military reforms and by recreating the Leningrad Military District (LMD) and Moscow Military District (MMD) in western Russia.[6] Russian officials have accused NATO of giving Russia a reason to reconstitute the LMD directly on the border with Finland.[7]

Russian Chief of the General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov appealed to Commonwealth of Independent State (CIS) members to increase cooperation against perceived Western threats as part of the effort to posture against the West. Gerasimov claimed on April 4 at a meeting of the chiefs of the general staffs of CIS member states that CIS countries are currently facing “increasingly real and diverse challenges, which requires [them] to have well-equipped and well-trained armed forces” as the West consistently destroys the “fundamental foundations of strategic stability and international security institutions.”[8] Gerasimov also reiterated false Russian accusations that the West sponsors international terrorism. Gerasimov called on the chiefs of general staff of CIS members to analyze the military-political situation developing in the world and on CIS members’ borders, develop integrated military systems, conduct combat training using member states’ combat experience, and increase multilateral military cooperation. Gerasimov is attempting to frame the West as a wider security threat to the CIS countries to portray Russia as the leader of an imagined coalition of countries that oppose the collective West. Russia has routinely attempted to posture against the West by casting Russia as the leader of the “world majority,“ a group of countries including post-Soviet and non-Western states that Russia intends to rally to oppose the West.[9] CIS countries’ governments apart from Belarus have not expressed open support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and have not recognized Russia’s illegal annexation of occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts in September 2022, although Russia likely uses commerce through CIS countries to evade international sanctions.[10]

The Kremlin leveraged this overall information operation about escalation with NATO to target France specifically, following French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent calls for the West to expand the level and types of security assistance it sends to Ukraine. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu held a phone conversation on April 4, reportedly their first contact since October 2022.[11] Shoigu threatened that the potential deployment of French troops to Ukraine would “create problems for France itself” in response to French President Emmanuel Macron’s March 16 statement that “perhaps at some point” it would be necessary for French troops to operate in Ukraine. Shoigu’s call with Lecornu is likely an attempt to directly influence recent French calls for Europe and the West to provide more military aid and other support to Ukraine. Shoigu likely attempted to single out France since Macron initiated the ongoing conversation about the West removing self-imposed constraints on its support for Ukraine. Shoigu is also likely attempting to deter future attempts from any Western states to increase military aid to Ukraine and intensify support for Ukraine by forcing Western leaders to self-deter out of fear of Russian retaliation. Shoigu had similar calls with senior US, UK, French, and Turkish officials in October 2022 in which he promoted Kremlin information operations threatening nuclear escalation in a likely attempt to deter the West from providing tanks to Ukraine.[12] Shoigu also claimed that he and Lecornu noted a “readiness for dialogue on Ukraine” that could resemble the Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations that occurred in Istanbul in April 2022, although a French government source told Reuters that “at no moment did [France] show any willingness to dialogue on Ukraine or negotiations.”[13] Shoigu’s attempts to threaten France and deter continued Western support for Ukraine while feigning interest in peace negotiations are part of a wider Russian information operation aimed at convincing Western countries to push Ukraine into unfavorable and unequal negotiations on Russia’s terms.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also promoted information operations feigning interest in negotiations, and Lavrov’s and Shoigu’s likely coordinated informational efforts may signal a new round of intensified Russian rhetoric about negotiations.[14] Lavrov used a meeting of dozens of foreign ambassadors from non-Western states to denounce Ukraine’s “peace formula” while claiming that Russia is ready to negotiate on terms favorable to the Kremlin. Lavrov spoke at a “round table” of more than 70 foreign ambassadors at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Diplomatic Academy on April 4 and reiterated several boilerplate narratives claiming that Ukraine was responsible for starting the war in 2014 and about Ukraine’s alleged involvement in the recent terrorist attack in Moscow. Lavrov also used the ambassadorial meeting to criticize Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “peace formula” and urge the countries present to not support it. Lavrov told journalists following the meeting that Russia thinks it is “not necessary to talk with Zelensky” but that Russia should negotiate instead with the West.[15] Lavrov claimed that the West, however, is not ready for negotiations. Lavrov also claimed that the current situation on the battlefield has created “new realities” and that Russia is ready for “honest talks based on these new realities and on Russia’s security interests.”[16] Russian officials have repeatedly falsely blamed Ukraine and the West for the lack of peace negotiations, despite numerous public Russian statements suggesting or explicitly stating that Russia is not interested in good-faith negotiations with Ukraine.[17] ISW continues to assess that Russia’s maximalist objectives – which are tantamount to full Ukrainian and Western surrender – remain unchanged and that any Russian statements suggesting that Russia is interested in peace negotiations are very likely efforts to force the West to make concessions on Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.[18]

Russian President Vladimir Putin continues attempts to balance the Kremlin’s opposing efforts to set social expectations for a protracted Russian war effort and to assuage Russian society’s concerns about the economic consequences of the war and labor migration. Putin stated during a speech at the 12th Congress of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia in Moscow on April 4 that Russia will experience a high demand for human capital and face labor shortages in the coming years.[19] Putin stated that Russia’s future labor shortage is “absolutely certain” and that it is “critically important” for Russia to increase labor productivity and modernize and automate various economic sectors, such as industrial production, service industries, and the agro-industrial sphere. Putin stated that Russia does not “have much of a choice: either [Russia] needs to import labor from abroad or [Russia] needs to increase labor productivity.” Putin appears to be telling Russia‘s xenophobic ultra-nationalist community that Russia must continue to rely on migration to address Russia’s labor shortages, likely to signal to Russian ultranationalist constituents to stop their calls for anti-migrant policies, especially in the wake of the March 22 Crocus City Hall terror attack.[20] ISW previously assessed that anti-migrant policies could worsen Russian labor shortages and degrade Russia’s crypto-mobilization efforts and that Russian authorities are unlikely to fully give into ultranationalist xenophobic demands to drastically reduce – if not eliminate –  immigration to Russia at the expense of Russia’s war effort and economic needs.[21]

Putin also claimed that Russia has not transferred its economy to a wartime footing and that Russia’s economy is instead “quite balanced” and fulfilling all social guarantees.[22] Putin did note that the Russian government is concentrating its efforts and administrative and financial resources on developing Russia’s defense industry, however. Putin’s suggestions that the Russian economy either is or is not on a wartime footing depending on the constituency he is addressing is a false binary as Russia has been gradually but effectively mobilizing its defense industry to support its invasion of Ukraine over the past several years.[23] Russia is currently allocating roughly a third or more of its annual federal budget to defense spending, and Polish President Andrzej Duda warned on March 20, citing unspecified German research, that Putin is intensifying efforts to shift Russia to a war economy with the intention of being able to attack NATO as early as 2026 or 2027.[24] The Kremlin has not, and likely cannot, rapidly transition the Russian economy to total economic mobilization as the Soviet Union did during the Great Patriotic War (Second World War), although the Kremlin consistently appeals to the mythos of the Great Patriotic War to suggest that Russia is capable of such an effort.[25] Putin invoked the idea of a wider Russian social and economic mobilization reminiscent of that of the Soviet Union’s total mobilization during a speech to Russian workers on February 2 and may have been gauging domestic reactions to a wider economic or military mobilization.[26] Putin’s claim of a peacetime Russian economy is part of a wider pattern wherein the Kremlin oscillates between appeals to a wider economic mobilization to support its war effort on the one hand and appeals to domestic economic stability to cater to an increasingly apathetic domestic populace on the other hand. The Kremlin’s routine invocations of a wider economic mobilization likely aim to shore up domestic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and create fear within the West of the Kremlin’s ability to bring to bear a significant amount of materiel in Ukraine.[27] The Kremlin’s efforts to reassure Russian citizens about Russia’s economic and social stability likely aim to avoid generating public discontent over the prospect of future economic disruptions.[28]

Key Takeaways:

• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov claimed that NATO and Russia are in “direct confrontation,” likely as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to intensify existing information operations meant to force the West into self-deterrence.
• Russian Chief of the General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov appealed to Commonwealth of Independent State (CIS) members to increase cooperation against perceived Western threats as part of the effort to posture against the West.
• The Kremlin leveraged this overall information operation about escalation with NATO to target France specifically, following French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent calls for the West to expand the level and types of security assistance it sends to Ukraine.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also promoted information operations feigning interest in negotiations, and Lavrov’s and Shoigu’s likely coordinated informational efforts may signal a new round of intensified Russian rhetoric about negotiations.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin continues attempts to balance the Kremlin’s opposing efforts to set social expectations for a protracted Russian war effort and to assuage Russian society’s concerns about the economic consequences of the war and labor migration.
• Russian forces conducted a roughly reinforced company-sized mechanized assault towards Chasiv Yar (west of Bakhmut) on April 4 and advanced up to the eastern outskirts of the settlement.
• Russian forces also recently made confirmed advances near Bakhmut and Donetsk City.
• An unspecified senior NATO official reportedly told Russian opposition news outlet Vazhnye Istorii that NATO intelligence agencies have not observed indications that Russia is preparing for a large-scale partial mobilization wave.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-4-2024

Good news this week that EU leaders are putting together an aid package to 'Trump-proof' support for Ukraine.  This is Ukraine's year to turn the war around, and it will be vital that it be able to conduct long-term planning and resource allocation without uncertainty as to the degree and timing of Western support.  The rest is up to the people of Ukraine.