3,000 fresh Russian losses as fourth season of Operation Vivaldi wraps up

For months, Russian forces have pressed to collapse Ukrainian defenses around the twin-city agglomeration of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the last major urban stronghold in the part of Donetsk Oblast still under Kyiv’s control.

The Ukrainian response, called Operation Vivaldi after the composer’s “Four Seasons,” has chipped territory back from the invaders since mid-September.

On October 14, Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps, said the operation’s fourth stage reclaimed 101 square kilometers and three more villages on the Lyman front: Zelena Dolyna, Lypove and Kolodiazi.

Across the four stages, Ukrainian forces have retaken 277 square kilometers and 16 settlements, and inflicted an estimated 8,000 Russian casualties, according to the 3rd Army Corps.

The stage 4 Russian loss figure stood at around 3,000 soldiers, with more than 250 Russian troops captured over the full operation.

A strike aimed at the encirclement plan

Biletskyi framed the operation around keeping Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from being outflanked.

“We did not allow the enemy to outflank the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration and trap it in a pincer,” he said, adding that the push also protected the Kharkiv-Sloviansk highway, the main supply route into the Donbas pocket.

The commander said the offensive disrupted Russia’s “West” grouping and forced it to redeploy units of the 1st Tank Army from the Kupiansk axis, easing pressure on the rail hub of Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi.

Progress by stage

By the end of stage three on September 28, Ukraine had retaken 51 square kilometers in that phase, bringing the cumulative total to 176 square kilometers, the Kyiv Independent reported at the time. Stage 4 lifted that figure to 277.

Alongside the three liberated villages, Interfax Ukraine reported that Ukrainian forces also restored control near the neighboring villages of Stavky and Shandryholove during the push.

Independent trackers log the day’s gains

Open-source monitoring project DeepState mapped about 88 square kilometers of Ukrainian advances across the sector that day, as noted by Interfax Ukraine, slightly below the 101 reported by Ukrainian command. Russian casualty counts come from the Ukrainian military and are not independently verified.

The 3rd Army Corps said all four seasons of Vivaldi had closed, with units continuing combat operations in the Lyman sector.

This article is made and published by Jens Asbjørn Bogen, who may have used AI in the preparation