It was time for Ukraine. It is now confirmed. The town of Lyman fell. This battle, in the north of the Donetsk oblast, experienced a spectacular turnaround. After advancing north of the city during the spring and summer, Russian forces were eventually pushed back by a counteroffensive dubbed “Operation Vivaldi”. As of September 25, the Ukrainians had recaptured several localities, including Drobycheve, Shandryholove and Derylove, able to claim approximately 125 km² since the start of the operation. These figures remain difficult to verify, but Russian decline in this sector is indisputable, and it is even confirmed by Russian sources.
The Ukrainians did not just retake a few villages: they largely dismantled the Russian salient that had formed north of Lyman. It has been a while since such progress has been seen for the Ukrainian camp. This salient threatened the northern flank of the Ukrainian device defending Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, essential towns of what is called the “fortified belt” of Donbass.
Lyman is not a victory of the same nature as Kharkov
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Ukrainian forces thus disrupted the Russian plan to carry out a vast movement to encircle this belt from the north, in coordination with a Russian push from the Dobropillia sector to the southwest. The interest of the Vivaldi operation also lies in its method. The Ukrainian army seems to have succeeded in regaining a capacity for tactical maneuver that drone warfare and permanent surveillance of the battlefield had previously reduced.
Operational secrecy, the neutralization of Russian drones, strikes against positions and electronic warfare, then the coordinated use of infantry, drones and robotic means made it possible to create a local advantage. Ukrainian forces claim to have used heavy drones to drop ground robots several kilometers behind Russian lines. The war, definitely, resembles less and less the one we knew before.
Serious shortage of men
However, let us avoid any too hasty conclusions. Because Lyman is not a victory of the same nature as Kharkov in 2022 where, under the command of Valeri Zalouzhny, then chief of staff, Russian forces had retreated largely to the east of the city. The Russian army is neither in disarray nor forced into a general retreat in Donbass. On the contrary. The other sectors of the front are not experiencing the same luck for the Ukrainians who are still suffering from a serious shortage of men. Fighting continues in several sectors, notably east and south of Sloviansk, around Kramatorsk and Konstantinovka.
This does not mean that the nature of the battle for Donbass has changed either. Russia maintains an advantage in mass, resources and the ability to maintain pressure on several sectors simultaneously. Above all, Moscow can shift its efforts, which is much more difficult for kyiv. Recent information indicates that Russian forces are seeking to increase their pressure towards Nikolayevka, on the axis leading to Sloviansk. In other words, preventing a Russian advance north of Lyman is not enough to secure the entire Ukrainian system: the Russian command can try to get around the problem by attacking elsewhere. Lyman’s main lesson is perhaps elsewhere.
Vivaldi’s success rests less on a spectacular breakthrough than on the combination of intelligence, electronic warfare, drones, deep strikes and small units capable of quickly exploiting opposing weaknesses. This may ultimately be more important than the square kilometers taken up themselves. The fact remains that Lyman constitutes a significant operational success because it reduced a direct Russian threat against the northern flank of the Donbass fortified belt. But this is not, at this stage, a strategic turning point in the war. The decisive question now is whether this success will remain a local exception or whether it heralds a new, more mobile and more integrated way of waging the land war in Ukraine.
