"Vivaldi's Four Seasons": The Stunning Results Of The Ukrainian Offensive
- 14.11.2026, 12:22
Russians fear a new operation by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
From May through mid-October (the Third Army Corps of the Armed Forces of Ukraine conducted Operation “Vivaldi” in the north of Donetsk Oblast).
According to the command, during the “four-season” operation, the corps managed to regain control of 16 settlements, clear and liberate 277 square kilometers of territory, capture several hundred Russian servicemen, destroy numerous pieces of Russian military equipment, and kill or wound 8,000 people, reports "Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty".
Thanks to this offensive, the Ukrainian army managed to improve the position of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Liman and Svyatogorsk area, thereby securing Slavyansk and Kramatorsk—the two largest cities in the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control—from the northeast.
Stages of the Operation
In total, according to the corps commander, the Russian army lost 8,000 servicemen, and another 270 Russian Armed Forces soldiers, including 20 officers, were taken prisoner. Biletsky claims that during the operation, the Ukrainian Armed Forces destroyed 3,800 pieces of various military equipment: 1,800 artillery systems, 50 air defense systems, and 68,000 UAVs. There is no independent confirmation of this information.
Assessments of the Scale
According to the corps command, the Ukrainian Armed Forces cleared 277 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory of Russian infiltration groups and liberated it.
The Ukrainian analytical project DeepState, which is conservative in its estimates, confirms that 179 square kilometers of territory have returned to Ukrainian control.
The Course and Results of the Operation
Representatives of the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) analytical team, in a conversation with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, note that after Ukrainian forces retreated across the Zherebets River, toward Liman, the formation of the Third Army Corps began in the spring of 2025, based on the Third Separate Assault Brigade. It included the brigades that had been defending that sector. The preparation for the offensive was preceded by stabilization of the front, personnel reshuffles, and training of units, the experts note.
At the same time, according to CIT estimates, the Russian 20th and 25th Armies were understaffed and unable to establish a stable front line in the face of Ukrainian drone superiority—a situation the Ukrainian Armed Forces exploited. The geography of the sector provided an additional advantage: it is bounded on both sides by rivers, which Russian assault troops had to cross via a limited number of fords.
During Operation “Vivaldi,” Ukrainian units continuously attacked Russian artillery crews, drone units, and electronic warfare and reconnaissance assets, as well as supply lines, fuel depots, warehouses, and repair bases. All of this helped pin down the Russian army and isolate the battlefield in the Liman sector of the front.
Ukrainian troops advanced primarily in small infantry groups supported by reconnaissance, artillery, and unmanned aerial vehicles; and at the start of the offensive, taking advantage of the element of surprise, they even deployed armored vehicles—which, due to the abundance of drones, are now less common on the battlefield.
An analyst at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) George Barros notes in a commentary for The Wall Street Journal that Operation “Vivaldi” demonstrated that tanks and other heavy combat vehicles can remain part of tactical maneuvers even when the sky is filled with drones. According to the expert, Ukrainian tactics allowed armored vehicles to “advance in a way that had not been possible since the start of the war.”
Barely Audible Music: An Operation Amid Information Silence
Another crucial aspect of the operation was a policy of complete information silence — representatives of the corps themselves contacted leading Western OSINT analysts and asked them not to publish their findings from this sector, so that Russian Z-bloggers and military leadership would not learn of Ukrainian successes. And although the claim that the Russian military leadership is following the war through Telegram channels and Western researchers may seem like an exaggeration, Russian “military correspondents” and military bloggers have indeed complained that the command is ignoring what is happening on the Liman front.
All of their reports were received even before the First Army Corps itself issued its first statements.
On October 16, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov stated during a briefing to Vladimir Putin that the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ attacks on this section of the front had “failed.”
The commander of the Third Army Corps Andriy Biletsky stated following the conclusion of Operation “Vivaldi” that the Ukrainian Armed Forces prevented the enemy from flanking the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk metropolitan area and encircling it, and also defended the Kharkiv–Slavyansk highway.
“The enemy was unable to cut off the key logistical artery of our group in the Donbas. We thwarted the offensive by the ‘West’ group and forced it to redeploy part of the 1st Tank Army’s units, which eased the pressure on Kupyansk-Uzlovaya,” he added.
The CIT notes that the Ukrainian operational-tactical operation thwarted Russian plans to encircle and capture Lyman, as well as to advance north of the Seversky Donets River all the way to Svyatogorsk. This advance was intended to create conditions for encircling the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk metropolitan area from the north.
“The operation also demonstrated that even under current conditions, by concentrating forces and deploying elite units, it is possible to conduct tactical-scale operations that, under certain conditions, can escalate into operational-tactical ones,” they say.
It’s just one step from “Vivaldi” to “Mozart.” What might happen next
Russian “military correspondent” Andrey Filatov, in a comment to “Gazeta.ru,” suggested that after “Vivaldi,” the Ukrainian army might launch a new operation in the north of Donetsk Oblast.
“What’s stopping them from finishing Operation ‘Vivaldi’ and starting Operation ‘Mozart’? The answer is: nothing. Biletsky hasn’t told us whether a new phase has begun or whether they’ve launched a new operation as a continuation of ‘Vivaldi’—whether it’s called ‘Chopin,’ ‘Mozart,’ or something else entirely,” he warns.
CIT considers a collapse of the Russian front unlikely but acknowledges the possibility of further stabilization of the front line and the conduct of tactical-level operations by Ukrainian forces. According to analysts, this could be facilitated by a slight slowdown in the pace of troop recruitment in Russia, which is typically observed at the beginning of the year.