Operation Vivaldi Signals A New Phase of War Favoring Ukraine

Ukraine's success in the Lyman sector may signal a new phase of the war in which an innovative combined arms doctrine emphasizing close coordination between drone units and infantry redefines what is possible.

Prior to this, in the first phase, traditional armor and infantry led assaults and counters dominated the fighting. And while Ukraine shocked the world with its ability to defeat the Kremlin invasion plan, Russia's advantage in men and materiel led to phase 2, which inaugurated the drone war that made armor and infantry assaults virtually suicidal. That phase continued until earlier this year, when Ukraine's new drone-infantry maneuver operations decimated mid range logistics, command and reinforcements, then allowing infantry mounted on armored vehicles to clear up Russian infiltrators. The question now is whether Russia has the ability - and the will - to adapt. JL

Mick Ryan reports in Futura Doctrina:

The  official disclosure of an ongoing Corps-level Ukrainian counteroffensive in eastern Ukraine represents the second significant Ukrainian counteroffensive this year (the first was in the south) and indicates Ukraine has developed new offensive techniques impacting ground combat. Russian military analysts described the situation near Lyman as worse for Russian forces than the earlier rout at Kupiansk, interesting given that battle has been treated as a low point for Russian infiltration tactics. Mid-range strike operations (out to 120 km) isolated the battlefield (using artillery, glide bombs, drones and EW), destroying Russian drone operations and interdicting logistics. Ukraine new offensive manoeuvre techniques which neutralise Russian infiltration tactics while suppressing drone operations that provide Russian situational awareness and use of these offensive operations to liberate territory and destroy Russian forces at the same time signal a new phase of the war.

The official disclosure of an ongoing Corps-level Ukrainian counteroffensive in eastern Ukraine. It represents the second significant Ukrainian counteroffensive this year (the first was in the south) and indicates Ukraine has developed new offensive techniques that are having an impact on ground combat operations.

Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the 3rd Army Corps, confirmed on 15 September that his forces have been running an offensive codenamed Vivaldi in northern Donetsk Oblast near Lyman since roughly May, conducted under very strict operational security. There have been open-source stories about this for the last couple of weeks, including my report here once news broke about the counteroffensive, but it was good to get an update from the commander on the ground.

Ukraine claims at least 75 square kilometres cleared of Russian infiltration units, and a further 10 square kilometres liberated around Novoselivka, Oleksandrivka, Yarova and Korovyi Yar, with the settlement of Seidnie also retaken. Several open-source analysts, working from geolocated footage put the true figure considerably higher, at 200 to 240 square kilometres. This gap is probably the result of the Ukrainians not yet wanting to announce information about some ongoing elements of the operation, and reporting lags.

Biletskyi made an interesting comment that telegraphs that this operation is far from over:

Vivaldi has four seasons. This is only the first.

Russian military commentators have struggled to spin the results. Russian military analyst Valery Shiryaev reportedly described the situation near Lyman as worse for Russian forces than the earlier rout at Kupiansk, an interesting admission given how that battle has already been treated as a low point for Russian infiltration tactics.

Ukraine’s claimed toll on the Russian units involved, roughly 1,500 soldiers, more than 12,000 drones and hundreds of vehicles and artillery pieces, is unverified. But the updates issued throughout this week by the 3^rd Army Corps tell a story of mid-range strike operations (out to 120 kilometres in depth) being used to isolate the battlefield (using artillery, glide bombs, drones and EW), destroy Russian drone operations centres and to interdict Russian logistics of the 20^th and 25^thRussian Combined Arms Armies.

Part of this was blinding and crippling the Russian Rubicon drone organisation in front of the 3^rd Army Corps, forcing its withdrawal. This is not only important for the conduct of the counteroffensive but heralds new counter drone tactics to support the return of manoeuvre to land combat operations. The 3^rd Army Corps issued a short release that described this key element of its Operation Vivaldi, noting that:

3rd Corps fighters disabled Rubicon’s command system: they destroyed its logistics, ammunition depots, drone launch sites, newly formed units, and experienced UAV operators…The Russians lost the ability to quickly replenish the unit with resources and trained personnel.

This suppression and destruction of enemy drone units, especially the coordination mechanisms for its use in reconnaissance, surveillance and strike, is now a central element in the reconnaissance battle, the conduct of manoeuvre and exploitation / securing of gains. I would hope that Western military institutions are studying this closely.

After a year in which Ukraine’s public narrative has been almost entirely defensive, Ukraine’s government was willing to sit the results of its four-month offensive in the east rather than announce it in progress, only revealing it once the results were judged worth publicising. That says something about how the Ukrainian government is now managing expectations at home and abroad.

Whether Vivaldi’s next movement expands on current operations, or simply consolidates what has already been taken, is one of the more interesting battlefield questions for the coming months. As I wrote last week, offensive manoeuvre is not dead, and Vivaldi has demonstrated this. But military institutions have needed time to make the intellectual and structural reforms necessary to adapt to the saturation of drones across the battlespace. I wrote in that piece from last week that:

Despite the difficulty in ground operations manoeuvre 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. This includes new thinking about incorporating autonomous systems at scale and across domains, more widespread employment of electronic warfare, new thinking about deception and operational security, and the application of AI to support command decision-making as well as rapid learning and adaptation.

These efforts represent the really hard work of military institutions. Such hard thinking to transform and build military effectiveness for a new era of war was observed during the First World War to break the trench stalemate, during the Second World War to develop successful amphibious operations that underpinned D-Day and operations in the Pacific such as those at Okinawa, and in the 1970s and 1980s to develop evolved air-land operations to overcome Soviet mass. We may be seeing a similar form of intellectual development to provide a solution to a crucial operational problem – liberating more occupied Ukrainian territory – happening now in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s new commanders, revised ground force command and control, unified short-, mid-, and long-range strike capabilities and new ways of thinking about offensive operations have demonstrated the ability and willingness of the Ukrainians to go on the attack where conditions are favourable. Their ground operations in 2026 have ensured that Russia has definitively failed in its 2026 ground offensive operations. This has denied Putin the ability to achieve any of his wider war aims and destroyed Russian narratives that it might one day achieve a victory over Ukraine. The Ukrainian successes in 2026 have probably influenced the position of the Trump administration toward the war.

Does Vivaldi Herald a New Phase of the War? We may be approaching, or in the midst of, a shift to a new phase of this war. The characteristics of this new phase might include the following:

1. Ukraine implementing new offensive manoeuvre techniques which neutralise Russian infiltration tactics while suppressing drone operations that provide Russian situational awareness.

2. The use of these offensive operations to liberate territory and destroy Russian forces at the same time.

3. Integration of tactical and operational land manoeuvre into a larger mid and long-range Ukrainian strike campaigns.

4. Exploitation of gains on the ground and in long-range strike to influence opinion in Europe and America, put pressure on Putin, and shape the stop-start peace talks.

5. Rapid development of new interceptors in the short term to degrade effectiveness of Russian jet drones. Concurrently, Ukraine is working on active and passive measures to reduce the impact of Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles including more strikes on missile factories and units in their home locations deep in Russia.

6. Russian escalation through increased participation in ground combat and missile strike operations by North Korea.

7. Russian escalation through increased strikes on civil targets to degrade Ukrainian morale in the winter and shift the narrative back to one of “inevitable Russian victory” (as laughable as that now is).

8. Russian escalation of its war against European nations including subversion, sabotage, breaching sovereign airspace, and potentially, strikes on targets inside Europe related to the war in Ukraine.

9. Efforts by both sides to influence the Trump administration in the lead up to, and immediate wake of, the US mid-term election.

10. Both sides believe that they can achieve an advantageous outcome in the war.