Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 22, 2026
Mostly headlines:
Ukrainian and US officials continued meetings in Switzerland on January 22. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with US President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos ...
Witkoff and Western outlets offered limited reporting about what the US-Russian meeting may discuss ...
[The circus continues ... ]
Putin is trying to use Trump's Board of Peace to curry favor with Trump and negotiate the release of frozen Russian assets to fuel the Russian economy ...
There is conflicting reporting about possible US, Ukrainian, and Russian meetings in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on January 23 and 24 ...
The Russian military command is reportedly prioritizing the provision of light motorized vehicles to Russian troops, further demonstrating how the Russian military is optimizing itself for positional warfare ...
The Russian military command is reportedly introducing a tactical-level situational awareness system to help streamline battlefield decision-making, seeking to use artificial intelligence to compensate for the low level of junior officer training and initiative in the Russian military, among other things ...
The Svod system likely aims to replicate the functionality of similar Ukrainian IT systems that help with target detection and identification. The Svod system, particularly its use of AI, likely further aims to help with real-time decision-making on the battlefield at the tactical level.
ISW continues to assess that the Russian military command has optimized its military decision-making process around a system designed to use lower quality individual service members who choose a plan from a playbook of battle orders and execute it with minimal alterations.
The highly tactical nature of the Svod system reflects the Russian military command's need to micromanage junior officers with limited training to compensate for a Russian military hierarchy that discourages autonomy. Russian efforts to integrate technologies such as AI as tactical decision-support tools are thus likely in part attempts to empower tactical units and commanders.
The Russian military command appears to be trying to fulfill its long-held goal of offsetting junior officer incompetence by generating templated yet responsive decision-making platforms. It is unclear if Russia's elite Rubikon Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies will be incorporated into the Svod system. Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov stated in August 2025 that the newly created Svod system will undergo combat testing between September and November 2025, and the reason for the delays is unclear.
The Russian General Staff is reportedly creating a new drone brigade that will incorporate a large variety of unmanned systems, likely as part of wider efforts to centralize drone units in the Russian military ...
The reported size and commander's rank of the 50th Unmanned Systems Brigade do not correspond with the traditional characteristics of a brigade ...
European states are increasingly seizing Russian shadow fleet tankers following a series of similar US actions in recent weeks ...
Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov dismissed five deputy defense ministers on January 22 ...
Belarusian forces continue to strengthen their air defense network in cooperation with Russia ...
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-22-2026/