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October 16, 2025
Ukraine has pulled off a significant, and unusually quiet, battlefield win near the strategic hub of Lyman, combining aerial drones, electronic jamming, and remote-controlled ground robots in a coordinated counteroffensive that Moscow apparently failed to anticipate. Known as Operation Vivaldi, the push by the Third Army Corps has reclaimed roughly 176 square kilometers of territory in northern Donetsk Oblast since it began in May. The operation came into public view only in mid-September, when Ukrainian commanders confirmed its existence after weeks of enforced secrecy.
The Third Army Corps, commanded by Brig. Gen. Andrii Biletskyi, revealed on September 28 that the operation's third phase had been completed. Ukrainian forces said they liberated the villages of Nove, Ridkodub, and Katerynivka, and restored full control over Karpivka and Novomykhailivka.
That final push added another 51 square kilometers to the Ukrainian tally. Earlier phases, disclosed on September 15, accounted for roughly 75 square kilometers seized directly from Russian forces plus another 10 square kilometers freed around villages such as Serednie. Ukrainian troops also pushed Russian units out of Novoselivka, Oleksandrivka, and Yarova, along with the area near Korovii Yar.
On September 20, the list grew longer with the recapture of Shandryholove and Derylove, along with complete control of Drobysheve.
These are not vast territorial gains by the standards of this war. But they carry strategic weight: the territory north of Donetsk has served as a staging ground for Russian attempts to close in on the region's remaining Ukrainian-held cities, and Lyman has been a linchpin for those efforts. By shoving the line back, Ukrainian forces have defused a direct threat to those cities from the north, at least for now.
Biletskyi is a familiar figure in Ukraine's war effort. A former commander of the Azov regiment, he has led the Third Army Corps through some of the heaviest fighting of the conflict. His public profile and the corps' reputation for aggressive maneuvering make the extended silence around Vivaldi even more striking - and, Ukrainian officials argue, that much more important to its success.
Few operations of this scale have stayed hidden for so long. The counteroffensive apparently began in May but was not publicly acknowledged until September 15 - a gap of more than four months.
Deputy commander Maj. Maksym Zhorin said the strict information silence was one of the operation's most important aspects. It allowed Ukrainian forces to mislead Russian military leadership about what was happening on that part of the front.
Zhorin also described a system called Protective Drone, a combination of electronic warfare assets that Ukrainian troops used to create what he called a "curtain" over the battlefield. In some sectors, he said, Russian drones simply could not penetrate it.
According to the Third Army Corps, that electronic shield disrupted more than 20,000 Russian drone sorties over the course of the operation. The figure cannot be independently verified, but the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has since assessed that Ukrainian forces achieved a considerable degree of tactical drone superiority in the Lyman area - enough to allow Ukrainian units to operate far more freely than usual.
Ukraine did not rely purely on defensive jamming. Before the ground assault unfolded, the Third Army Corps ran an extended campaign against Russian logistics and drone infrastructure behind the front lines.
ISW analysts noted that Ukrainian drones first struck supply targets roughly 50 kilometers behind the front, then extended operations to as far as 120 kilometers. Among the priority targets were fuel depots in occupied Luhansk Oblast, where Moscow's forces stored the diesel needed to power their own electronic warfare systems.
The logic was straightforward: degrade the logistics that keep Russian jamming equipment running, and Russian units become blind not only to Ukrainian drones but also to the wider picture of the battlefield.
The ground phase was where Operation Vivaldi broke the most new ground.
Maj. Serhii Tischenko of the Third Army Corps' 96th Support Battalion told Business Insider that Ukrainian soldiers used unmanned ground vehicles under cover of darkness to lay and clear minefields ahead of daylight attacks. One of the robotic vehicles could carry roughly 880 pounds, and crews were able to prepare minefields in two days that might have required two full weeks of manual work.
Tischenko's account points to a quieter revolution: robot-assisted preparation of the battlefield is becoming standard procedure rather than a one-off experiment.
Even more striking is the way Ukraine delivered some of those robots. A unit known as NC13, operating under the call sign "Gryphons," used heavy bomber drones to carry small kamikaze ground vehicles over Russian lines. The drones dropped the machines more than 10 kilometers behind the front, and operators then guided them remotely toward Russian troops from directions that would otherwise have been unreachable.
Near the villages of Nove and Katerynivka, the Third Assault Brigade went a step further. Crews took two ageing Soviet-era BTR armored personnel carriers, packed them with explosives, and drove them remotely into heavily fortified Russian positions. The result was, in effect, two large unmanned bombs on tracks - a scaled-up version of the improvised drone tactics that have defined much of this conflict.
The wider significance of Vivaldi extends beyond the map. It represents one of the first large-scale examples of a synchronized approach that combines unmanned ground systems with air-launched drones and electronic warfare in a single, coherent operation.
For outside militaries watching this war, the template is hard to ignore. The ability to blind an opponent's drones while using robots to clear paths and attack strongpoints directly addresses some of the most difficult problems of modern combined-arms warfare.
The catch is that the technology is not exclusive to Ukraine. Russia has shown repeatedly that it can absorb lessons from the battlefield and adapt within weeks. There are already signs of adjustment: recent battlefield reporting has highlighted Moscow's growing reliance on fiber-optic-controlled drones, which are immune to traditional radio jamming, and Russian forces near the front have reinforced their own electronic warfare units. Russian designers have also showcased their own unmanned ground vehicles, and previous Ukrainian innovations have quickly found counterparts on the Russian side.
Having demonstrated the effectiveness of these tactics, Kyiv has also handed its adversary a clear blueprint for countering or copying them. That makes the window of opportunity created by Vivaldi potentially short-lived.
For the soldiers and residents of the region, the immediate effect is visible in the slowly moving frontline. Ukraine's gains have not collapsed Russia's defensive positions across the wider Donetsk front, and heavy fighting continues elsewhere. But in the stretch of territory north of Donetsk, the momentum has shifted after more than a year of Russian progress.
The operation was not bloodless; the villages and treeline positions north of Donetsk have been the site of some of the most brutal infantry combat since the start of the full-scale invasion. The heavy reliance on robots, Ukrainian officers say, was in part a response to the murderous reality of fighting through minefields and fortified positions in open terrain.
Operation Vivaldi has also handed Ukraine's military a rare piece of genuinely good news at a moment when much of the wider front remains deadlocked. Whether it proves to be a turning point or simply a sharp tactical success will depend on what Kyiv does next - and on how quickly Moscow responds.
The war began with columns of armored vehicles and massed artillery. It is increasingly being fought by drones, jammers, and robots. Operation Vivaldi shows that Ukraine is willing to push that evolution as far as it can go.
