ISW rejects Russian claims that 'frontline in Ukraine will imminently collapse'

That is according to a new report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Ukrinform reports.

According to analysts, Russia is deliberately spreading this narrative likely in an effort to coerce the West and Ukraine into capitulating to Russian demands that Russia cannot secure itself militarily.

The report notes that a Kremlin-affiliated milblogger observed that the Russian state media, following Putin's November 27 press conference, is widely spreading false claims that the frontline in Ukraine is collapsing as Ukrainian forces "desert and surrender en masse" and leave large areas undefended; that Russian forces will soon drive on Kyiv City.

The milblogger accused Russian state media of fabricating some territorial successes and amplifying Putin's exaggerated claims, using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate fake videos of Ukrainian forces surrendering, and deliberately targeting social media users, ISW said.

"Russian state media are also trying to reinforce the Kremlin's efforts to create a perception that Russian forces will inevitably collapse sectors of the frontline in Ukraine, destroy Ukraine's most combat-capable elite units, and degrade the combat effectiveness of the Ukrainian military writ large — and that Ukraine and the West should therefore immediately concede to Russia's demands before the situation worsens for Ukraine," the report said.

The milblogger affirmed that the frontline is not collapsing; that Russia is far from victory; that Russian forces maintain the initiative at high personnel and materiel costs; that Ukrainian and Russian forces are engaged in positional warfare along the entire frontline; and that Ukrainian forces are counterattacking — all of which coheres with all available open-source evidence from the battlefield.

ISW continues to assess that while the situation in some specific sectors of the frontline is serious, particularly in Pokrovsk and Huliaipole directions, "Putin's and Russian state media's assertions are exaggerated and do not correspond to the battlefield reality they claim to represent."

Oleh Apostol, Commander of the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces, earlier said that Ukrainian forces had completed an operation in the Dobropillia sector, stabilizing the situation around Pokrovsk and preventing further Russian advance.

Photo: 122nd Separate Territorial Defense Brigade