The commander of an interceptor battalion in Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps said his unit destroyed several thousand Russian aerial targets during Operation Vivaldi, ArmyInform, the Defense Ministry’s news agency, reported on 21 October.

Operation Vivaldi is a Ukrainian counteroffensive north of Lyman in Donetsk Oblast, where the 3rd Army Corps has reported liberating settlements. In its third phase, Ukrainian forces reclaimed five settlements and expanded their gains to 176 square kilometers. Strikes on Russian logistics and electronic warfare likely neutralized Russia’s drone defenses before Ukraine sent in armor, the Institute for the Study of War assessed.

The commander, who uses the callsign “Betsyk,” leads the interceptor battalion of the 1030th Anti-Aircraft Missile-Artillery Regiment “Aquila,” part of the 3rd Army Corps. He said Russian forces deployed large numbers of reconnaissance drones to locate Ukrainian positions after the corps began advancing.

Betsyk named Zala, Orlan, Supercam, Merlin, and Knyaz Veshchiy Oleg among the reconnaissance drones used by Russian forces.

Russia also brought in reinforcements and units operating strike drones, including first-person-view (FPV) quadcopters, Molniya fixed-wing FPV drones, and Lancet crews, he said. At one stage, Russian forces deployed crews from their Rubicon drone unit to disrupt the advance, but the move did not change the situation.

Betsyk said his battalion’s work deprived Russian forces of the ability to strike Ukrainian troops and track their movements.

Jet-powered Shaheds: speed is the main challenge

The regiment also works against Russian strike drones heading for targets behind the front line. Betsyk said interceptor crews had destroyed some jet-powered drones, but not in significant numbers.

The main difficulty is speed, he said. Interceptor drones need to reach 500–600 km/h to intercept Russian jet-powered attack drones, according to Betsyk.

For now, the regiment mainly uses conventional air-defense systems against these targets: self-propelled anti-aircraft systems, surface-to-air missile systems, and portable surface-to-air missile systems. Betsyk said these systems were historically designed to engage jet-powered targets.

He compared the current challenge with the early use of piston-powered Shaheds. Those drones initially posed a serious threat but later became easier for Ukrainian air defenses to counter. Russia has largely stopped using piston-powered Shaheds on most fronts since summer, he said, but continues to use piston-powered Gerbera drones, which are relatively cheap and can partly exhaust Ukrainian air defenses. The main drones Russian forces use now are jet-powered Shaheds, he said.

Betsyk expects Russian forces to adapt if Ukraine fields effective interceptors against jet-powered drones. They will seek ways to evade the interceptors, increase speed, improve navigation, and change their tactics, he said. However, he added that the battalion had not observed a major evolution so far and did not expect the drones’ speed to double.

What the corps says Vivaldi achieved

Separately, 3rd Army Corps commander Andrii Biletskyi said Ukrainian forces retook 277 square kilometers and 16 settlements during Operation Vivaldi, Ukrainska Pravda reported. Biletskyi also said Russian losses exceeded 8,000 personnel, according to ArmyInform. These figures are Ukrainian claims and have not been independently verified.

Russia’s Rubicon drone unit, which is sent to hunt Ukrainian drone pilots, was not used to being hunted itself, Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi told journalists on 19 October. He was summing up Operation Vivaldi, which his Third Army Corps fought in northern Donetsk Oblast from May to mid-October. Once its pilots realized they were being killed, Rubicon’s morale dropped sharply, he said.

Russia has fought for 12 years to take all of Donetsk Oblast, and Sloviansk and Kramatorsk anchor the fortress belt of cities Ukraine still holds there. Vivaldi retook 277 km² in northern Donetsk Oblast. Biletskyi says it destroyed Russia’s bridgehead on the Chornyi Zherebets River and forced Moscow to drop its plan to bypass Lyman from the north and encircle the two cities. On that front, the Third Corps had flagged Rubicon, Russia’s elite drone unit, as a threat.

Hunting the hunters

Once a Rubicon position was found, the Third Assault Brigade and the KRAKEN drone regiment committed any number of FPV and bomber drones to destroy its crews, Biletskyi said.

The brigade’s commander, Yaroslav Levenets, said his troops prepared for Rubicon’s arrival and concentrated on killing its pilots. He gave no details.

“Not stable in defense,” Levenets said of Rubicon’s troops.

They dislike sitting in trenches, he said, and under pressure they grow nervous and change positions.

Named for four seasons

Biletskyi said the name was chosen at the very start of planning, in winter 2025–2026, many months before the operation began. The original plan had four stages, one for each season, and later grew to slightly more, ArmyInform reported.

When he first unveiled the operation in September, he put it this way:

“Vivaldi, as is known, has four seasons. And this is only the first one.”

He credited two planners, known by the call signs Yurist and Leshyi. Leshyi, an assault soldier wounded seven times who later moved to staff work, was killed. Yurist was seriously wounded.

A new hand at the Third Corps

Major Dmytro Rohoziuk is now acting commander of the Third Army Corps, the corps press service said on 20 October. The press service said the move is not a transfer, and Biletskyi keeps his formal post as corps commander while he leads the “Center” grouping of the Third, 11th, and 19th corps.

Rohoziuk took over the 60th Mechanized Brigade in October 2025. Its previous commander was arrested in January after the State Bureau of Investigation accused him of embezzling about $1 million in weapons procurement. The brigade fought in all four phases of Vivaldi and retook Kolodiazi without street fighting.

Biletskyi also declined command of the Ground Forces, which oversee mobilization.

“There’s no point taking on something you don’t truly believe you can improve,” he said.

Biletskyi’s count

Russian losses in Vivaldi topped 8,000 troops, and about 270 Russian soldiers were taken prisoner, Biletskyi said. More than 20 officers surrendered, including a chief of staff and three company commanders.

The territory matters less than disrupting Russia’s strategic plan, he said. Russian forces still press toward Dobropillia, where Ukraine is counterattacking.

Rohoziuk previously commanded the 60th Separate Mechanized Brigade, which participated in the operation that Ukrainian forces say reclaimed 277 square kilometers (107 square miles) and liberated 16 settlements in the Lyman sector.

"The trend this year continues," Zelensky said, "Since the start of fall, our warriors have liberated more territory than the Russians have managed to capture. The same was true at other points this year."

Ukrainian infantry encircled and retook the village of Kolodiazi north of Lyman without getting drawn into street fighting, while a drone battalion kept the sky above them shut, the battalion’s chief of staff told Suspilne on 18 October. The village fell during the fourth and final phase of Operation Vivaldi, Ukraine’s counteroffensive in northern Donetsk Oblast.

For years now, Russia has aimed to seize Lyman and cross the Siverskyi Donets River. It needs this area to encircle Ukraine’s fortress belt of Donetsk Oblast cities from the northwest, ISW assesses. Vivaldi’s four phases retook 277 km² and 16 settlements on that approach, and a veteran of the operation has said Ukraine’s assault troops suffered more than ten times fewer casualties than Russian forces doing it.

Drones over the infantry

The 60th Mechanized Brigade fought in all four phases of Vivaldi and took Kolodiazi in the last one, said the chief of staff of the brigade’s Fatum unmanned systems battalion, callsign Krash.

“Our task, as an unmanned systems battalion, was to escort and ‘close’ the air in front of our infantry to make it impossible for the enemy to hit it. To suppress all the firing assets possible,” he said.

The brigade’s 3rd Mechanized Battalion, the main striking force, encircled Kolodiazi and retook it without getting drawn into street fighting, Krash said. The 1st Mechanized Battalion kept Russian reinforcements out of the area, while drone crews suppressed artillery, hit supply runs, and worked against Russian drone operators.

500 troops and 200-plus vehicles

The drone battalion killed or wounded about 500 Russian troops during the fourth phase and struck Russian armored vehicles, trucks, and motorbikes, its chief of staff said.

“More than two hundred pieces of various equipment: Grad and Uragan multiple rocket launchers, various armored vehicles, tanks, armored combat vehicles. Most of all motorbikes and quad bikes, there the count runs into the hundreds. This is our enemy’s main logistics tool,” he said.

Ghost villages

The villages retaken in northern Donetsk Oblast are nearly empty of civilians, Krash said.

“It’s very typical for de-occupied settlements: these are ghost towns. You can see right away where the occupier stepped. All the settlements are under the control of the Third Army Corps, our forces stand there and prevent enemy infiltration. But civilian life in these towns is either absent or very scarce,” he said.

Third Army Corps commander Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi reported Kolodiazi’s liberation, along with Zelena Dolyna and Lypove, when he summed up Vivaldi’s fourth phase, which secured 101 km².

Russia’s drone and missile attacks on Ukraine’s population and infrastructure continue to dominate coverage of the conflict. But on the ground, Ukraine has been making significant, if still limited, gains. In mid-September, Ukraine formally announced the existence of Operation Vivaldi, which has retaken territory near Lyman and disrupted a Russian advance toward the fortified cities […]

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Ukraine has completed its Operation Vivaldi, aimed at protecting its fortress belt cities of Donetsk Oblast, which helped Kyiv preserve the region from Russian occupation for 12 years. Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, the commander of the Third Army Corps behind the operation, has reported that the fourth phase secured 101 km² of territory. Among the latest achievements is the liberation of three settlements—Zelena Dolyna, Lypove, and Kolodiazi.

The operation's main objective was to move Ukrainian troops into more advantageous defensive positions, Biletskyi said in the first days after the operation was made public. Vivaldi has now summed up the results of all four phases: Ukraine has established full control over 16 settlements, liberated 277 km² of territory, and inflicted 8,000 casualties on Russian forces.

Ukraine worked against Russia's deadline

During Operation Vivaldi, Ukrainian forces have prevented Russian troops from outflanking the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration and cutting the Kharkiv–Sloviansk highway, a key supply route for Ukraine’s forces in Donbas, Biletskyi says.

“We thwarted the offensive of the Zapad grouping and forced it to redeploy some units of the 1st Tank Army, which eased pressure on Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi,” Biletskyi announces.

Previously, the Institute for the Study of War noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin was confident that Russian forces would be able to seize the entire Donetsk Oblast by the end of 2026 — the Kremlin’s latest deadline for achieving this goal.

Ukraine’s military was on a mission to prevent this.

Season one: clearing russian infiltration groups

On 15 September 2026, Ukraine’s Third Army Corps announced Operation Vivaldi in northern Donetsk Oblast. During the first phase, Ukrainian troops cleared Russian groups from 75 km² of territory and liberated another 10 km².

The Third Army Corps said it had struck Russian supply routes and fuel infrastructure, prompting Russia to relocate its fuel and lubricant reserves to Voronezh Oblast. According to the corps, Russian forces lost around 1,500 troops, more than 12,000 drones, and hundreds of pieces of equipment.

Season two: liberation of Shandryholove and Derylove

On 20 September, the Third Army Corps reported the liberation of Shandryholove and Derylove and the establishment of full control over Drobysheve.

During the second season, Russian forces lost another 800 troops, bringing their total losses across the first two seasons to more than 3,000, according to the corps.

During the first two seasons of the operation, Ukrainian troops and attached units regained control of 125 km² of territory, including 50 km² that had been fully liberated.

The first phase of Vivaldi involved eliminating Russian groups that had infiltrated Ukrainian positions, explained the commander of a battalion in the 125th Brigade, callsign Darwin, per ArmyInform. After clearing those groups, the Defense Forces moved on to the operation’s second phase, using reconnaissance drones to detect Russian forces, he added.

For this, Ukraine used UAVs and ground robotic systems.

“The Third Army Corps was the first in the world to begin deploying ground robotic systems by air. Our heavy bombers deliver kamikaze ground robotic systems more than 10 kilometers behind enemy lines,” Biletskyi noted.

Season three: advances near Novе and Ridkodub

On 28 September, the Third Army Corps reported the liberation of Nove, Ridkodub, and Katerynivka and the restoration of control over Karpivka and Novomykhailivka. Ukrainian forces regained another 51 km² of territory, bringing the total area liberated since the start of the offensive to 176 km². Russian forces lost around 2,000 troops, and more than 250 were taken prisoner, the corps said in its summary of the operation’s third phase.

“The Russians were convinced that the main axis of attack was Shandryholove–Zelena Dolyna. This led it to squander its reserves in counterattacks along that very axis. The Russians slept through the actual strike, which was focused on capturing Nove,” Biletskyi said.

Operation Vivaldi aimed to disrupt Russia’s plans in Donetsk Oblast

The need for Operation Vivaldi arose amid Russian attempts to encircle Ukraine’s fortified belt in Donetsk Oblast. Ukrainian forces conducted preparatory efforts aimed at degrading Russia’s offensive capabilities, including strikes on Russian drone operators, the Institute for the Study of War reported on 9 October.

Ukrainian counterattacks in the Lyman direction and east of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk were intended to complicate Russian efforts to seize the fortified belt in Donetsk Oblast, the report noted.

The corps advanced gradually, reclaiming small areas instead of attempting a large-scale breakthrough.

A Russian attack on Sloviansk on 13 October wounded members of a Ukrainian Red Cross team, the Ukrainian Red Cross Society reported. The same day, a Russian bomb hit the city’s invincibility point, one of the state-run hubs where residents warm up and charge phones when power goes out.

Help is getting harder to reach in Sloviansk. Public transport stopped after a Russian strike on two buses in nearby Kramatorsk killed 30 people on 8 October. From 1 November, a curfew from 16:00 to 11:00 will cover nearly all of Donetsk Oblast’s free territory. The people providing help are hit too. Russian drones struck three ambulances in Kramatorsk on 5 October. In August, a Russian strike destroyed a World Health Organization humanitarian warehouse in Dnipro.

Team had moved from Lyman

Three members of the society’s Lyman city branch were hurt. The branch had moved to Sloviansk because of the security situation and kept working there. All three were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds and burns. The building where the team worked took heavy damage, and a fire caused by the attack damaged the organization’s property.

The society’s Donetsk Oblast branch later added that a fourth person suffered a concussion, and that all four were hospitalized. The Red Cross condemned attacks on civilian infrastructure and humanitarian workers.

Bomb hit the warming center

The strike came at 12:45 in the Lisnyi microdistrict, Sloviansk city military administration head Vadym Liakh wrote. He later identified the weapon as a FAB-250, a 250-kg air-dropped bomb. Eight people were injured, and five apartment blocks were damaged, Liakh said. He described the warming center’s building as damaged, while Suspilne Donbas reported it destroyed.

Two Russian strikes on Sloviansk that day killed at least one person, Donetsk Oblast head Vadym Filashkin wrote. Liakh said a Russian attack on the Semenivka neighborhood killed a 55-year-old woman. On 14 October, Filashkin reported that Russian attacks killed three people across Donetsk Oblast on 13 October, in Sloviansk, Druzhkivka, and Starovarvarivka.

Five months after launching Operation Vivaldi, a local counteroffensive in northern Donetsk Oblast, the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps has eliminated the Russian bridgehead on its most important long-term objective: the Zherebets River, which flows south through eastern Ukraine and forms a natural defensive barrier east of the last big free cities in Donetsk: Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

Attacking methodically under strict secrecy, the 3rd Army Corps has pushed back the Russian 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies and returned 176 sq km of northern Donetsk to Ukrainian control as of 30 September, according to Ukraine's presidential office. The figure could not be independently verified. Operation Vivaldi netted the Ukrainians hundreds of Russian prisoners and erased 18 months of Russian advances toward Sloviansk.

"Ukrainian forces have defeated the 2026 Russian campaign to seize Donetsk Oblast," the Institute for the Study of War in Washington concluded.

It's a remarkable feat for the overall outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian forces. Equally remarkably, the Ukrainians deftly dodged several potentially fatal traps as they flanked the 20th and 25th CAAs. They didn't get stuck in the Russians' dense minefields. They didn't expose themselves to devastating air attack. Perhaps most importantly, they didn't set their sights on distant objectives. They thought small instead of big, stacking small gains on top of small gains until those wins amounted to a big victory.

A trio of US Army officers—Col. Timothy Price, Capt. Patrick Visser, and Capt. Andrew Carter—described this achievement in academic terms. The corps' defeat of the Russian bridgehead on the Zherebets "had little to do with maneuver warfare," the officers wrote for the Modern War Institute at the US Military Academy in West Point, New York.

In military parlance, "maneuver" generally involves heavy ground forces supported by air strikes and artillery decisively breaking through enemy lines and then rushing vehicles and troops into the panicking enemy's unguarded rear area to quickly inflict maximal destruction and achieve maximal territorial gains.

That's not what the 3rd Army Corps did in its five-month—and ongoing—counteroffensive. No, the Ukrainians "won through systematic, geometric interdiction and positional pressure," Price, Visser, and Carter wrote. Put plainly, the corps carefully probed for tree-covered assault lanes toward key settlements, deployed unmanned ground vehicles to clear mines and explode the most important nearby Russian strongpoints, and then rushed in armored vehicles carrying infantry.

They marched step by step, incrementally liberating a kilometer at a time instead of running a marathon toward a major objective tens of kilometers away. In that way, Operation Vivaldi is the very opposite of Ukraine's failed 2023 summer counteroffensive, which massed tanks for what commanders hoped would be a decisive breakthrough around the village of Mala Tokmachka in southern Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

The objective at that time was to break into the Russian rear and speed tanks 80 km to the occupied city of Melitopol near the Sea of Azov. That never happened. The Ukrainians got mired in minefields around Mala Tokmachka, suffered badly from Russian air attacks, and, after a grueling season of costly attacks, lost momentum just 10 km south of Mala Tokmachka. Later Russian counterattacks erased even those modest Ukrainian gains.

Old thinking versus new

The planners of the failed 2023 counteroffensive were stuck in an old way of thinking about maneuver warfare. The planners of the successful 2026 counteroffensive shrugged off obsolete ideas. They thought smaller—and, ironically, achieved much more as a result.

The 3rd Army Corps couldn't, and didn't, do it alone. Indeed, the corps depended on the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces to fray the Russians' supply lines, electronic warfare teams to jam Russian drones, and the Ukrainian air force to bomb Russian drone operators the EW teams couldn't suppress. By contrast, the Ukrainian forces attacking south from Mala Tokmachka in 2023 did so without much aerial support.

The aerial and electronic preparation was a prerequisite for each of the 3rd Army Corps' incremental advances this spring and summer. The lesson, the officers argue, is that "higher headquarters must degrade key enemy capabilities" before a smaller ground formation can expect to gain ground and keep it. If the support falters, the ground forces won't be able to hold.

Think small. Prepare hard. Now that the Ukrainians know this is how to win on the ground, can they repeat Operation Vivaldi's success?

There's some evidence they're already doing so in the southeast, where a clutch of Ukrainian air assault brigades has been pushing back the Russian 29th Combined Arms Army.

Ukrainian assault troops suffered more than 10 times fewer casualties than Russian forces during Operation Vivaldi, a Ukrainian military veteran said on 9 October, describing the ratio as unprecedented and highlighting Ukraine’s improved ability to protect its soldiers during offensive operations.

The counteroffensive has been a significant Ukrainian success, reclaiming territory in northern Donetsk Oblast and disrupting Russia’s plans to advance toward Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. The reported casualty ratio points shows Ukraine’s ability to make offensive gains while reducing the human cost of assaulting fortified positions.

Yevhen Dykyi made the remarks in an interview with Radio NV, saying the results showed how Ukrainian forces had learned to limit losses while attacking defended Russian positions.

Protecting troops during offensive operations

Dykyi said the casualty ratio was one of the operation’s most important outcomes.

He said that Ukrainian assault troops suffered more than 10 times fewer casualties than Russian forces during the counteroffensive.

“That speaks volumes. We have learned how to protect our people, and that is extraordinarily vital,” he added.

Operation Vivaldi disrupted Russia’s advance in Donetsk

The Third Army Corps launched Vivaldi in mid-September in northern Donetsk Oblast, near Lyman, where Russian forces had spent months trying to advance toward Ukraine’s fortified cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

The operation aimed to clear Russian troops from positions north of Lyman and disrupt Moscow’s plans to encircle the remaining Ukrainian-held parts of Donetsk Oblast. Ukraine’s Third Army Corps announced the counteroffensive on 15 September, initially reporting that its forces had cleared Russian infiltrators from several settlements and liberated Serednie.

By 30 September, Ukraine had regained 176 square kilometers of territory during the operation, according to figures cited by the Ukrainian presidential office. Ukrainian authorities also reported that their forces had captured around 250 Russian soldiers and inflicted more than 5,000 Russian casualties, including killed and wounded. 

The counteroffensive also disrupted Russia’s effort to advance behind Ukraine’s fortified defensive line. By threatening Russian positions north of Lyman, Ukrainian forces complicated Moscow’s plans to encircle the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk area rather than attack its defenses head-on.

Unmanned systems help limit casualties

A key feature of Vivaldi has been the use of unmanned systems to attack fortified Russian positions before Ukrainian infantry moves in. Ukrainian forces deployed ground robots carrying grenade launchers to fire into Russian shelters, while explosive ground vehicles were used to destroy bunkers and strongpoints.

In one reported tactic, heavy drones delivered kamikaze ground robots more than 10 kilometers behind Russian lines, allowing Ukrainian operators to attack positions without exposing infantry to direct fire.

Ukrainian forces are advancing east of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and even Russian milbloggers now acknowledge it, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on 8 October. The gains may follow months of groundwork like the one that preceded Operation Vivaldi near Lyman, which Ukraine says returned 176 km² to its control. Russian commentators are already doubting that Moscow can reach the two cities.

Russia's years-long push on the Fortress Belt, the chain of cities anchoring Ukraine's defense in Donetsk Oblast, has been stalling since Vivaldi began. Unable to take those cities, Russia keeps hitting them from the air. On 8 October, a Russian bomb killed 30 people on two buses in Kramatorsk.

Across the Siverskyi Donets

Russian milbloggers said Ukrainian forces liberated Ozerne and advanced east of Pyskunivka toward Kryva Luka, ISW reported. They also acknowledged that Ukrainian troops drove Russian forces out of Pyskunivka. Ukrainians are now counterattacking toward Kryva Luka from the west and northwest, from across the river.

ISW called the repeated Russian claims of a river crossing notable, because the Siverskyi Donets is a significant natural obstacle. Kryva Luka is a dominant height just south of the river. From there, Ukraine could launch further counterattacks. Ukrainian forces appear to have pushed Russian troops off both banks in this area, ISW assessed.

The heights Russia wanted

After Vivaldi cleared ground near Lyman in September, Russia shifted its push south toward Mykolaivka and Sloviansk. Russian forces likely see Mykolaivka, just east of Sloviansk, as a primary objective, ISW said. Its heights would favor an offensive on the city. Ukrainian pushes northeast and southeast of the town now deny Russia that terrain.

East of Kramatorsk, milbloggers claimed Ukrainians liberated Malynivka and advanced between Fedorivka Druha and Holubivka. They also reported gains into southern Minkivka and near Fedorivka. The lines remain tangled. Geolocated footage shows Ukrainian forces striking a Russian position in central Tykhonivka after what ISW assesses was a Russian infiltration.

ISW said the counterattacks may point to a broader Ukrainian goal: pushing Russian forces east, away from the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk area and toward the Siverskyi Donets–Donbas Canal.

The Vivaldi playbook

The counterattacks have run for weeks. On 29 September, Ukrainian military observer Kostiantyn Mashovets reported them in the same areas, saying Russia's 3rd Combined Arms Army had failed to make significant gains. ISW assesses that the attacks build on months of shaping meant to wear down Russia's offensive capacity.

Before Vivaldi, Ukrainian forces targeted Russian drone operators, gaining drone superiority before the counteroffensive. They used the same approach ahead of their Oleksandrivka counterattacks in early 2026.

Moscow appears to see the pattern. A Ukrainian military official said on 7 October that Russia is moving drone units and Spetsnaz from quieter sectors to the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk direction. Ukraine also reorganized its command in and around Donetsk Oblast in early September, which may be blunting Russian attacks from the east, ISW said.

"Distant" and "doomed"

One Russian milblogger called an advance toward the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk area a "distant" prospect, ISW reported. A Russian offensive from Siversk toward Sloviansk may be "doomed" to failure or heavy losses unless Russia retakes the forests south of Lyman, he said.

The counterattacks east of the two cities appear to support Vivaldi, ISW assessed. Together with Russia's defeat north of the river, they could disrupt Russia's offensive toward Sloviansk from the east entirely.

If Ukraine holds Kryva Luka and keeps Russia off the Mykolaivka heights, Moscow's pincer on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk loses the ground it was built on.

Armored vehicles aren't dead in Ukraine—they just need a lot of help. That's one of the biggest lessons from the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps' Operation Vivaldi, its recent successful counteroffensive just north of the town of Lyman in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast.

Russia spent 18 months building its salient toward Sloviansk; Ukraine took much of it back in three. By 30 September, three of four planned phases in, the operation had returned 176 sq km to Ukrainian control, taken 250 Russian prisoners, and cost Russia more than 5,000 killed and wounded, Ukraine's presidential office said. It also foiled a Russian plan to break into the rear of the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk urban area, the office said.

Defying critics who insisted vehicles couldn't possibly survive in the drone-patrolled gray zone, the 3rd Army Corps repeatedly deployed mechanized forces as it counterattacked across a roughly 100 sq km salient the Russian 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies had extended toward Sloviansk, one of the last two big free cities in Donetsk Oblast.

Maneuvering for months under a veil of secrecy, the 3rd Army Corps found and exploited gaps along the flanks of the 20th and 25th CAAs, ultimately breaking into the Russian armies' rears and forcing them to pull back across the Zherebets River in order to avoid encirclement.

Armored vehicles were key to the Ukrainian effort. They sped assault troops into battle, dropped them off under fire, and then supported them as they clashed with the Russians. "Maneuver warfare isn't going anywhere," stated Ryan O'Leary, a US Army veteran who once commanded volunteers in Ukraine.

3rd Army Corps commanders knew they were taking a risk deploying armored vehicles in a Russian-controlled salient patrolled by first-person-view drones from Russia's elite Rubicon Center drone unit. But they clearly believed that, with adequate support, the vehicles could accomplish their missions—and survive.

They were right. A dramatic video shot by 3rd Army Corps troopers depicts the troopers disembarking from their armored trucks and rushing into the fight while small arms fire clatters all around them.

Given the intensity of the Russian fire, a mechanized assault "was the only real way to push positions in an effective manner to keep losses low as well as gain and hold momentum and aggression," O'Leary wrote. Walking into battle under the cover of trees might help the infantry avoid the attention of overhead drones, but it takes too long to sustain an aggressive assault, and it can be difficult to mass enough footborne infantry to overcome stiff enemy defenses.

"This is something that hasn't changed even with the advent of drone warfare coming of age," O'Leary added. "Suppression tactics and such have changed and now there is more than just indirect fires and counterassaults that you must be able to suppress and plan for."

But the concept of the infantry-carrying armored vehicle "isn't going anywhere," O'Leary stressed. "Especially when it takes a drone tens of minutes to get to target area, acquire target and hit the target. Right now, the front is extremely susceptible to maneuvering forces on assaults if it is planned right and executed properly."

The 3rd Army Corps' Operation Vivaldi is an excellent example of an operation that was planned right and executed properly—in ways that helped the corps' mechanized forces fight and survive.

New footage shows Ukrainian forces storming and clearing Russian positions during the "Vivaldi" counteroffensive in the Lyman direction. The assault was captured firsthand by Ukrainian soldiers using GoPro cameras. pic.twitter.com/qxyNHl0n3A

— Vijesti (@Vijesti11111) October 6, 2026

Careful preparation

The corps explained that it deployed footborne scouts to find the best paths for follow-on vehicular assaults—and subsequent medical evacuations. Scouts "conducted recon of the front lines, ensured the breakthrough of equipment and led adjacent units along secret paths while evacuating the wounded," the 3rd Army Corps stated.

Before the armored vehicles rolled into action along the pre-scouted paths, the 3rd Army Corps deployed robotic engineering vehicles to clear Russian mines. After that, the corps sent in old BTR-60 wheeled armored vehicles modified for remote control and packed with anti-tank mines. These "robotic kamikaze complexes ... were used to demolish the enemy's strongest fortifications," the corps said.

Only after the assault routes were scouted and cleared of mines and Russian strongpoints did the manned vehicles and their precious infantry cargo roll out. We don't know how many losses the 3rd Army Corps' mechanized infantry suffered on the attack, but we do know they ultimately prevailed—when the battered Russian 20th and 25th CAAs retreated.

"Recent Ukrainian operations demonstrate that maneuver is not dead," stressed Mick Ryan, a retired Australian army general. "Despite the difficulty in ground operations maneuver observed in eastern Ukraine over the past few years, offensive operations are still possible in modern war. But they need the intellectual effort to develop new techniques to make them viable and repeatable at scale."

In addition to the reconnaissance and robots-first engineering and suppression tactics the 3rd Army Corps employed, Ryan recommended commanders deploy more drone-grounding electronic warfare and use AI tools to help plan attacks.

But ages-old human elements are still essential, Ryan wrote. "Developing viable methods for offensive tactical and operational maneuver in the 21^st century also demands the inclusion of older ideas about the employment of mass, logistic support and casualty evacuation [and the] maintenance of morale and leader's provision of purpose to their people."

Even when the assault route is clear, it's understandably terrifying to ride in an armored vehicle across drone-patrolled terrain. But a good leader can motivate their troops to try.

The Russians are struggling on land and at sea, and are having real difficulty protecting themselves from Ukrainian long-range attack. That has left them with one real strategic “advantage” and that is what we will see the next few months. As reports this week made clear, the Russian strategy is now to make Ukraine unlivable, […]

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