Karolina Hird, Nicole Wolkov, Grace Mappes, Angelica Evans, and George Barros

April 8, 2024, 8:15pm 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 2pm ET on April 8. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the April 9 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian oil refineries are reportedly forcing Russia to seek gasoline imports from Kazakhstan. Three unnamed industry sources told Reuters in an article published on April 8 that Russia asked Kazakhstan to establish an “emergency reserve” of 100,000 metric tons of gasoline that Kazakhstan could supply to Russia in case of shortages exacerbated by Ukrainian drone strikes and resulting refinery outages.[1] One of the unnamed sources stated that Kazakhstan and Russia have already reached an agreement allowing Russia to use Kazakh gasoline reserves in some unspecified capacity. Advisor to the Kazakh Energy Minister Shyngys Ilyasov denied that the Kazakh Energy Ministry had received such requests from Russia, however.[2] Reuters reported on April 2, citing its own data, that constant Ukrainian drone strikes have shut down about 14 percent of Russia’s overall oil refining capacity.[3] Reuters also previously reported on March 27 that Russia has significantly increased its gasoline imports from Belarus following Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries and that Russia has imported 3,000 metric tons of gasoline from Belarus in the first half of March as compared to 590 metric tons in February and no gasoline imports in January.[4] Recent Russian efforts to import gasoline from Belarus and Kazakhstan indicate that Russia is likely increasingly concerned about the immediate domestic supply of distillate petroleum products following Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries.

Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) indirectly suggested that it may have been responsible for an explosion that disabled a Russian Baltic Fleet small missile carrier at the naval base in Baltiysk, Kaliningrad Oblast on April 7. The GUR published footage on April 8 allegedly of an explosive detonating in the control room of the Russian Baltic Fleet’s Serpukhov Project 21631 Buyan-M class corvette on April 7.[5] The GUR reported that the resulting fire destroyed the Serpukhov’s automation and communications systems and that repairs will take a long time to complete. Some Ukrainian media outlets cited their sources within GUR as stating that GUR conducted the attack against the ship.[6] ISW has not observed independent confirmation of damage to the Serpukhov. Baltic Fleet elements in Kaliningrad Oblast have notably conducted several recent electronic warfare (EW) exercises, and Estonian and United Kingdom (UK) officials have linked Russian EW forces in Kaliningrad with multiple recent GPS jamming incidents in the Baltic region since December 2023, including one incident that jammed the satellite signal of a plane carrying UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps.[7]

Recent discourse among select Russian milbloggers highlights contradictory Russian rhetoric in the Russian information space between narratives that seek to portray Russian forces as more capable than Ukrainian forces and other narratives that criticize the Russian military for shortcomings that result in high Russian infantry casualties. Several milbloggers recently discussed and criticized the tactic of having infantry ride atop armored vehicles to frontline positions before dismounting to conduct frontal assaults.[8] This is not a novel tactic for either Russian or Ukrainian forces, but the tactic, which exposes unprotected infantry to threats, recently appears to have attracted more scrutiny from Russian military commentators. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) posted footage on April 8 that shows elements of the 98th Guards Airborne (VDV) Division apparently employing this tactic on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar (east of Bakhmut), wherein armored vehicles transported infantry to frontline positions, the infantry dismounted, and the armored vehicles quickly withdrew.[9] One milblogger responded to separate footage that reportedly shows about 25 Russian personnel riding on the side of a tank in an unspecified area, before Ukrainian forces either struck the tank or the tank ran over a mine, forcing the personnel to rapidly dismount and run across an open area without cover or concealment.[10] The milblogger called this kind of tactic “extremely crazy,” but another milblogger refuted this characterization and claimed that this practice of using armored vehicles to rapidly transport and dismount infantry reveals more about the lack of Russian armored vehicles on certain sectors of the front than it does about the underlying tactics of such assaults.[11] The second milblogger claimed that Ukrainian fires have significantly attrited Russian armored vehicle numbers especially near Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast, and Krynky, Kherson Oblast, so Russian troops must make do with very few armored vehicles to transport personnel to compensate for losses in armor and prevent further such losses.[12]

Another milblogger questioned why Russian media fixated on footage of failed Ukrainian armored attacks during the summer 2023 counteroffensive even though Russian forces themselves struggle with many of the same tactical issues when conducting similar attacks, especially due to the saturation of drones in the battlespace.[13] A milblogger affirmatively responded and noted the reality of Russian soldiers on the ground in Ukraine differs dramatically from conversations propagated in the Russian information space, emphasizing that Russian commentators can “laugh at [Ukraine’s] counteroffensive in the Zaporizhia direction, and then lose many times more [Russian soldiers] on the Avdiivka front,” and concluding that Russia is lying to itself about the losses it is suffering in the war.[14] The discourse between Russian milbloggers about the use of Russian armored vehicles and their survivability on the battlefield, as well as about the conduct of Russian assaults, highlights arguments that many Russian milbloggers continue to have over how the war is being fought and suggests that many milbloggers are very attuned to the impacts these conversations are having on the wider understanding of the war.

The Kremlin-affiliated governor of the pro-Russian Moldova autonomous region of Gagauzia, Yevgenia Gutsul, insinuated that Romanian officials control the Moldovan government — the latest in a series of recent Kremlin efforts to question European pro-Western governments’ sovereignty. Gutsul claimed on April 8 during an interview on Russian state television channel Channel One (Perviy Kanal) that if Gagauzia begins the process of seceding from Moldova, there will be a reaction not only from the Moldovan government in Chisinau, but also from Bucharest, Romania, which Gutsul claimed “controls” Moldovan authorities, implying that Moldova is not sovereign.[15] Gutsul claimed that Moldovan authorities may respond to Gagauzian secession with “loud, threatening statements” or deploy forces to Gagauzia and claimed that unification between Moldova and Romania would be the “death” of Moldova and Moldovan language and culture.[16] Gutsul claimed on April 5 that Gagauzia would “immediately” begin the process of seceding from Moldova should Moldova unify with Romania.[17] Gutsul’s April 8 interview on Russian state television is likely aimed at setting conditions to justify potential future Russian aggression against Moldova to Russian speakers and pro-Russian audiences in Gagauzia, Moldova’s pro-Russian breakaway republic of Transnistria, and other pro-Russian areas of Europe and Central Asia and in Russia itself. The Kremlin likely views its efforts in Moldova as part of Russia’s wider existential geopolitical conflict with the West. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and MFA officials recently insinuated that Western countries are somehow guiding the Armenian government‘s national security policy and claimed that Finland has “lost its independence in making foreign policy decisions” since its accession to NATO.[18] The Kremlin previously made similar false claims that NATO controls Ukraine and is using Ukraine to threaten Russia in order to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty and justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.[19] The Kremlin will likely continue claiming that its various target states are not fully sovereign to set information conditions for Russian hybrid or conventional operations against them. ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin is likely attempting to use pro-Russian actors in Moldova to destabilize Moldovan democracy and society, prevent Moldova’s accession to the European Union (EU), or even justify future hybrid or conventional operations against Moldova.[20]

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian oil refineries are reportedly forcing Russia to seek gasoline imports from Kazakhstan.
• Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) indirectly suggested that it may have been responsible for an explosion that disabled a Russian Baltic Fleet small missile carrier at the naval base in Baltiysk, Kaliningrad Oblast on April 7.
• Recent discourse among select Russian milbloggers highlights contradictory Russian rhetoric in the Russian information space between narratives that seek to portray Russian forces as more capable than Ukrainian forces and other narratives that seek to criticize the Russian military for shortcomings that result in high Russian infantry casualties.
• The Kremlin-affiliated governor of the pro-Russian Moldova autonomous region of Gagauzia, Yevgenia Gutsul, insinuated that Romanian officials control the Moldovan government — the latest in a series of recent Kremlin efforts to question European pro-Western governments’ sovereignty.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kreminna, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Donetsk City.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the Russian Cabinet of Ministers and Russian machine construction company KONAR JSC to increase the production of components for the domestic machine tools industry, likely as part of ongoing efforts to expand the Russian defense industrial base (DIB) and mitigate the effects of international sanctions.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-8-2024

Russian troops still making slow but steady progress moving westwards out of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, and previous experience tells us to expect that these operations will start to ramp up rather than die down.  The attack out of Bakhmut especially is part of a very long-held Russian aim which they have been pursuing since even before the fall of the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk position so long ago - the taking of the major Ukrainian defensive belt in the Donbas along the Kramatorsk-Slovyansk line.  This was directly threatened in 2022 when the Russians took Izyum and looked like they would cut it off to the west, but of course the 2022 counter-offensive put paid to that.  The the Capture of Bakhmut in 2023 was to be the first stepping stone in an assault on the position from the east, but the fight was much harder than expected and then the implosion of the Wagner Group ended the effort.  Now they are back for another go, grinding through the outlying towns and villages, spending men for a few meters of ground like they have an inexhaustible supply - on form so far, perhaps they do.