Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi Phase 2 Just Ended. The Offensive Is Far From Over
As the Ukrainian command keeps reminding everyone, Vivaldi had four movements. They have acknowledged that Phases 1 and 2 are now completed. In keeping with the operating security doctrine that contributed to the counteroffensive's success, Ukraine has not yet announced whether Phase 3 has started - or where it might be.
The larger point is that Operation Vivaldi, which has already achieved strategic success by disrupting and postponing the Kremlin' attack on the Fortress Belt, still maintains both momentum and the initiative as the crossing of the Zherebets River by Ukrainian forces means they now have a much wider area in which to operate. JL
Ryder Blackthorn reports in The Frontline Signal:
On September 23, the 3rd Army Corps said Operation Vivaldi was still underway, and Russian military-linked sources are now reporting Ukrainian counterattacks farther southeast around Lyman. Russian forces are disorganized, trying to hold important defensive areas, and being forced to find additional reserves. Russian forces apparently believed the wet terrain made heavy vehicle movement unlikely. Ukraine adapted its vehicles for those conditions and moved through terrain where Russian forces weren’t expecting armor, apparently achieving tactical surprise. The initiative remains with the 3rd Army Corps. Phase Two may be finished, but the fighting clearly isn’t.
When I wrote about Operation Vivaldi last week, Ukraine had only just publicly acknowledged what had been happening north of Lyman. At that point, Ukrainian forces said they had cleared or liberated around 85 square kilometers. Serednie had been liberated, while Novoselivka, Oleksandrivka, Yarova, and the outskirts of Korovii Yar had been cleared of Russian infiltration.
Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps, also made something clear: the first phase wasn’t supposed to be the end of the operation.
The 3rd Army Corps says Phase Two brought Shandryholove and Derylove back under Ukrainian control and established full control over Drobysheve. In total, the corps says 125 square kilometers have now been restored to Ukrainian control during the operation, including about 50 square kilometers described as deoccupied territory.
But the territorial number isn’t actually the most interesting part anymore. On September 23, a deputy commander from the 3rd Army Corps said Operation Vivaldi was still underway, and Russian military-linked sources are now reporting Ukrainian counterattacks farther southeast around Lyman. Phase Two may be finished, but the fighting clearly isn’t.
The Fight Is Moving Beyond Phase Two
The latest gains matter because of where they happened. Shandryholove, Derylove, and Drobysheve sit north and northwest of Lyman, in an area Russia had spent months trying to use to build pressure toward the city.
Ukraine’s September 24 morning frontline report recorded 15 Russian attacks in the Lyman sector during the previous day, including toward Novoselivka, Drobysheve, Lyman, Maslyakivka, Dibrova, and Shyikivka. Another six assaults were recorded in the neighboring Sloviansk sector, including around Yampil, Starodubivka, and Mykolaivka. This isn’t a neat counteroffensive story where Ukraine retook several villages and everybody conveniently stopped moving. Russia is still attacking, Ukraine is still counterattacking, and both sides appear to be fighting over where the new line settles.
This is the part I’m watching most closely. ISW reported on September 22 and 23 that Ukrainian forces were continuing counterattacks in the Lyman direction, including southeast of the city. More importantly, those reports are coming in part from Russian sources themselves.
A source reporting on Russia’s Western Grouping of Forces claimed Ukrainian troops were counterattacking toward Yampil and the Zherebets River. The same source claimed the Russian command was redeploying additional reserves toward Lyman to stabilize the situation and establish defensive positions along the Zherebets. Then on September 23, another Russian source again reported Ukrainian counterattacks toward Yampil and the river. A Russian military blogger separately claimed Ukrainian forces were regularly counterattacking from Ozerne toward Kryva Luka.
These are Russian frontline reports of Ukrainian counterattacks, not a map of confirmed territorial gains. But they do indicate that fighting is continuing beyond the settlements highlighted at the end of Phase Two. Ukraine still appears to be testing Russian positions southeast of Lyman, and the Zherebets River could matter again if Ukraine can keep pushing Russian forces toward it.
ISW has previously assessed that pushing Russian troops back toward the Zherebets could help Ukraine establish a more stable defensive line, using the terrain itself to complicate Russian movement. A river isn’t some magical wall, especially on a battlefield dominated by drones, artillery, and long-range strikes. But terrain still matters. For now, the exact Ukrainian line remains harder to establish than the direction of the pressure.
The 3rd Army Corps Says It Holds the Initiative
The 3rd Army Corps isn’t describing Vivaldi as finished either. On September 23, a deputy corps commander using the callsign Rollo told Censor.NET that only the interim effects of the operation could currently be assessed. He said Russian forces were partially disorganized, trying to hold important defensive areas, and being forced to find additional reserves. He also claimed the initiative remained with the 3rd Army Corps.
That’s the Ukrainian military describing its own operation, so it needs to be treated as exactly that. Still, the Russian-source reports of reserve movements toward Lyman give part of that claim some outside context.
According to the 3rd Army Corps, its unmanned systems units carried out roughly 36,000 strike missions against Russian logistics during Vivaldi. The corps says drones initially worked across an area extending as far as 50 kilometers behind the line before the strike zone expanded to as much as 120 kilometers. Targets included ammunition depots, communications nodes, command posts, vehicles, and fuel infrastructure.
Those figures come from the Ukrainian military and can’t all be independently verified, but they tell us how the corps says it approached the operation: don’t begin with the trench; begin with everything feeding the trench.
One of the more interesting examples involved a fuel pipeline into occupied Luhansk Oblast. The 3rd Army Corps says it struck the beginning and end points of a pipeline running from Voronezh Oblast and forced the system to shut down. A corps spokesperson told Militarnyi that the pipeline had supplied roughly half of the daily diesel requirement of Russian forces in occupied Luhansk Oblast.
That 50% figure is a Ukrainian military claim and hasn’t been independently verified, but ISW also reported that the pipeline shutdown was disrupting Russian logistics and forcing fuel to move over a roughly 400-kilometer route from Russia. The corps separately says repeated strikes extended one Russian division’s equipment-evacuation route by around 250 kilometers. Make everything behind the Russian soldier farther away, then attack the soldier.
On this battlefield, that’s not a small detail. With many roads under persistent drone observation, offensive actions have become slower and less cinematic. Vivaldi appears to have been built partly around disrupting that chain long enough for Ukrainian units to move. ISW assessed that Ukrainian tactics during the operation allowed Ukraine to reintroduce limited elements of mechanized maneuver at the tactical level. Limited is the important word, but creating temporary windows for mechanized movement matters.
Sometimes the Weather Helped Too
One small detail from Serednie probably explains the operation better than another giant number. A Ukrainian battalion commander said troops entered the settlement with armored vehicles after heavy rain. According to the commander, Russian forces apparently believed the wet terrain made heavy vehicle movement unlikely. Ukraine had adapted its vehicles for those conditions and moved through terrain where Russian forces weren’t expecting armor, apparently achieving tactical surprise.
That’s the sort of thing that disappears when we only stare at arrows on a battlefield map. Vivaldi wasn’t one clever weapon or one giant breakthrough; it was logistics strikes, drones, electronic warfare, air defense, terrain, deception, and ground forces working together.
Proving nobody anywhere has ever attempted something similar is a much larger task than confirming Ukraine used the system during Vivaldi. What we can say is that the 3rd Army Corps released imagery of the operation and said the air-dropped UGVs were used during the fighting that preceded the liberation of Shandryholove and Derylove and the clearing of Drobysheve. The important part is what Ukraine was trying to do: put machines into some of the most dangerous spaces before sending people.
Russia Hasn’t Stabilized the Sector Yet
None of this means Russia has been driven out of the Lyman area. Today’s frontline reporting makes that obvious. Russian forces are still attacking toward Lyman and surrounding settlements, while fighting is also continuing around Yampil in the neighboring Sloviansk sector.
The 3rd Army Corps says the operation remains underway, while Russian sources continue reporting Ukrainian counterattacks farther southeast and additional reserves moving toward Lyman. That doesn’t mean Phase Three has officially begun, nor does it guarantee another sudden push. It tells us something simpler: Vivaldi hasn’t settled into history yet.
Ukraine says Phase Two is finished. Around Lyman, the next season may already be starting.
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