Kateryna Stepanenko
@KatStepanenko
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🇺🇦🗽🇺🇸| Russia Research Fellow @TheStudyofWar | Russian Cognitive Warfare, Kremlin Drama, Drones & Force Generation | opinions my own
Washington, DC
Joined September 2012
The Kremlin will likely formally amend restrictions on mobilizing Russia’s active reserve to conduct rolling partial mobilization without declaring war on Ukraine or formally announcing that it is conducting a partial involuntary call up. A🧵our latest with @georgewbarros.
WARNING: The Kremlin is Preparing to Mobilize Reservists on a Rolling Basis to Fight in Ukraine for the First Time: https://t.co/r7t35I0COq Note: This warning does not suggest that the Kremlin is likely to undertake a single large-scale mobilization at this time. Key Takeaway
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Russians are claiming the use of new ISR “Knyaz Veschiy Oleg” UAV - a companion drone to “Knyaz Vandal Novgorodsky” fiber-optic FPV. Claimed range is 45km - the UAV was built as a cheaper alternative to Rus military fixed-wing ISR drones. https://t.co/LCCzJF0Uj5…
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Kicking off the afternoon with @MarkCMontgomery, Amb. John Sullivan, and @KatStepanenko on our Europe Matters panel. Key takeaways: -The Kremlin was scared when President Trump came into office because they had to squash the message domestically that peace is possible.
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Just as @KatStepanenko & I forecasted, the Russian MoD officially announced plans to deploy active reservists to protect infrastructure in the Russian rear. This is likely in part to obfuscate likely Kremlin efforts to prepare to deploy reservist to combat in Ukraine in the
Russia may be on the precipice of a strategic inflection in its force generation strategy. We may be looking at a ramp-down of the pay-to-pay recruitment method, and the beginning of compulsory recruitment of reservists. Read our team's warning forecast here:
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Russia is intentionally muddying the information space with false flag claims and information operations in an attempt to generate cover for overt and covert attacks against Europe in the past several years, including the recent Russian drone incursions into NATO airspace. ⬇️
NEW: US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone on October 16. Other Key Takeaways: Russian Presidential Aide Yuriy Ushakov attempted to obfuscate Russia’s deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in his statement on the
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Statement: ISW is aware that a known Russian bot network is again spreading fake videos that deceptively use the ISW brand and likeness to promote fabricated assessments and other false claims as part of the Kremlin’s concerted campaign to dissuade President Trump from providing
Russia’s Matryoshka bot network launches campaign criticizing the West over possible Tomahawk missile transfer to Ukraine The bots are spreading disinfo disguised as reputable media outlets and think tanks like the AP and ISW, as per @antibot4navalny. https://t.co/9ip6JP31p3
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Russia’s Matryoshka bot network launches campaign criticizing the West over possible Tomahawk missile transfer to Ukraine The bots are spreading disinfo disguised as reputable media outlets and think tanks like the AP and ISW, as per @antibot4navalny. https://t.co/9ip6JP31p3
theins.press
The Kremlin-linked bot network “Matryoshka” has launched a campaign on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) criticizing Western countries for the possible transfer of U.S. Tomahawk cruise...
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This amendment, however, does not likely presage a large-scale involuntary reserve call up similar to the one that brought hundreds of thousands of Russians into the military in 2022.
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Compulsory rolling mobilization of reservists may enable Russia to generate forces more cheaply as Russia’s main method for generating manpower through high financial incentives and price surging is reportedly losing momentum.
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The amendment will likely allow the Kremlin to deploy active reservists into combat more rapidly than was possible under the previous mechanism that required a formal declaration of war or mobilization order.
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The Kremlin remains unlikely to declare general mobilization of the inactive reserve (“zapas”) due to concerns over the impacts on regime stability, the Russian economy, and the administrative capacity of Russia’s military bureaucracy.
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The Kremlin will likely use the amendment to centralize control over the Russian Combat Army Reserve (BARS) units, which have been largely functioning as irregular formations and often under the supervision of Russian businessmen and officials.
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The Kremlin will likely use the amendment to involuntarily call up personnel in Russian irregular formations whom Moscow has been treating as an informal active reserve.
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The Kremlin will likely misrepresent the mobilized reservists as members of the professional reserve who volunteered to fight in Ukraine to prevent Russian society from opposing increased deployments of mobilized reservists.
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The new regulation approved on October 13 only concerns members of Russia’s active reserve, not Russia’s larger ”zapas.”
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Russia also retains an inactive reserve (also known as the human mobilization resource or “zapas” in Russian), which includes Russian men with a military registration age as old as 65-70 (in certain circumstances) who are not actively affiliated with the Russian Armed Forces.
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Russia has two types of reserves. Russia retains a higher-readiness “human mobilization reserve,” an active reserve, in which Russians sign a contract w/ MoD on a voluntary basis to serve in the reserve in exchange for compensation while remaining civilians except when called up.
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The draft amendment also creates a new category of force assemblies called “special assemblies,” during which mobilized reservists would train for no more than two months before being deployed abroad.
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The Russian Cabinet of Ministers’ Commission on Legislative Activity approved a MoD draft amendment to permit the Russian military to use reservists from the “human mobilization reserve” in expeditionary deployments outside of Russia without an official Kremlin declaration of
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