Third Army Corps completes Operation "Vivaldi": 277 km² liberated in Lyman sector – Biletskyi
Operation "Vivaldi", which the Third Army Corps kept secret for four months, has concluded with the liberation of 277 km² of territory in the Lyman sector.
Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the Centre Grouping of Forces, announced this at a press conference alongside the corps command, Censor.NET reports, citing hromadske.
Scale of the operation and Russia’s claimed gains
According to Biletskyi, Russia had claimed a much larger area near the line of contact — 1,260 km². He attributed this to the Russians "drawing in utterly astronomical and unrealistic gains", including claims to have captured Sviatohirsk, Oskil and Borova.
"If we go by the Ukrainian map, it is actually 277 km², plus several hundred kilometres cleared of enemy infiltration, which we do not even count as gains from the operation," he said.
Russian losses
According to Biletskyi, enemy personnel losses during the operation exceeded 8,000 killed and wounded. A total of 270 Russian servicemen were taken prisoner. They included a battalion chief of staff and 13 reconnaissance platoon commanders, with more than 20 officers captured in total. Two battalion commanders were killed during the final stage of the operation.
During the assaults, 3,800 pieces of equipment of various types were also hit, including 1,800 artillery systems.
What the enemy had planned
Biletskyi said the main objective of the operation was to disrupt Russia’s offensive operations.
- According to him, the Zapad Grouping of Forces, which includes three Russian armies, was supposed to advance from a bridgehead on the Chornyi Zherebets River towards Sviatohirsk and the settlement of Rubtsi. The Russians intended to split the Ukrainian grouping on the eastern bank of the Oskil, destroy it, and then advance towards Barvinkove in the southern Kharkiv region.
According to the commander, the strategic plan involved two thrusts. The first was through the Sviatohirsk salient, which Ukrainian troops eliminated, bypassing Lyman to envelop the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk urban area from the north. The second was through Dobropillia towards the same destination, Barvinkove, to complete the envelopment of the Donetsk region.
According to Biletskyi, this was intended to achieve the Russian leadership’s key political objective — the complete capture of the Donetsk region. This was the plan for 2026: Russia began implementing it in 2025 and was supposed to reach Barvinkove during 2026.
Biletskyi claims that the 144th Division of Russia’s 20th Army has been routed and has ceased to exist as an organised military force.
"What they are doing now looks more like death throes than organised, systematic military operations," he said.
- According to him, following the defeat of its offensive grouping, the enemy has abandoned its attempt to outflank the Donetsk region for now. Two options remain: a frontal assault on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which the commander believes would be "quite costly, bloody and by no means certain to succeed", or the Dobropillia sector. He described Dobropillia as the only sector where Russia has had some success and has not yet abandoned its efforts. At the same time, he said, the Ukrainian military command is actively conducting counter-operations there.
Why the operation matters
According to Biletskyi, the operation’s significance lies neither in the amount of territory recovered nor in the fact that the Third Corps reached the Chornyi Zherebets River, shortening the front line and now defending from a favourable defensive line. To resume its offensive, Russia will have to cross the river again. The most important outcome, he stressed, is that Russia’s strategic plans have been thwarted.
Biletskyi also said Ukraine’s total casualties were one-seventh of Russia’s, with deaths accounting for most Russian casualties and injuries for most Ukrainian casualties.
"The Ukrainian army can conduct offensive operations against a numerically superior enemy. We can advance, and we can be effective," he said.
