Russian information campaigns at the beginning of the invasion relied on reinforcing the assumption that

Russia

possessed the "second largest army in the world" with advanced military capabilities.

This is stated in the report of the Institute for the Study of War. 

These information operations were intended to mislead the West and Ukraine that any transfers of military equipment would be irrelevant, as Ukraine would not be able to withstand offensive operations rapidly unfolding from different directions and would be vulnerable to a Russian attack.

For example, in early March 2022, the Kremlin threatened that Russia would consider the delivery of Western military aid as a legitimate military objective.

However, the Russians did not demonstrate the dynamic targeting capabilities necessary to strike Western equipment moving into and through Ukraine during the first year of the war, and instead resorted to expending their precision weapons to strike stationary civilian energy infrastructure throughout Ukraine.

The Kremlin has reframed its information operations to exaggerate the importance of each tactical offensive following Russia's withdrawal from Kyiv Oblast and redeployment to Donbas in the spring and summer of 2022.

The narrative adjusted the idea of ​​Russian military power away from large-scale offensive operations, which were already impossible to achieve stable and significant successes on the front line.

"The Kremlin deliberately exaggerates the importance of every tactical offensive of the Russian army in order to demoralize Ukrainians and make the West doubt the importance of further military support for Kyiv," analysts believe.

We will remind, the military expert of the Ukrainian Institute of the Future Ivan Stupak said that

the Russian army

has already shown everything it is capable of even at the beginning of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine.

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