Donetsk: Ukraine's “Vivaldi” counteroffensive pushes Russia back near Lyman
Even pro-Kremlin bloggers concede losses south of Lyman. Russia's plan to encircle the fortress belt around Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from the north is stalling.
Archive image · Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped and resized)
In the north of the Donetsk region, Ukraine's army is regaining ground. The “Vivaldi” counteroffensive has recaptured around 175 square kilometres around the town of Lyman this year, Al Jazeera reports. Even the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Rybar admitted that Russian troops are losing villages south of Lyman. An assault on Sloviansk's urban area is receding, the channel wrote. “Vivaldi is a very successful operation. It is not finished yet,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said, according to the Kyiv Post.
Claims about the front line differ. Russian President Vladimir Putin had claimed gains of 1,300 square kilometres in September. The US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), by contrast, estimates a net Russian loss of around 80 square kilometres in the same month. The figures are hard to verify independently because of the wide grey zones under drone surveillance.
At the same time, casualties are rising. Ukraine's military reported 46,230 Russian soldiers killed and wounded in September, the highest figure this year. Russia, for its part, has intensified attacks on cities: 22 people were killed in Pryluky on 7 October, and at least 30 people died in two buses in Kramatorsk a day later.