Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The daily rhythm of Russian “liberation” announcements has suddenly gone quiet.
For much of 2026, Russia’s defense ministry produced a near-daily drumbeat of claims that its forces had taken another Ukrainian village. The pattern shaped how the war was framed in Western coverage: a slow, grinding advance.
That drumbeat has stopped. Russian military groupings and the defense ministry announced no newly captured Ukrainian settlements in the first eight days of November 2026, according to a review of Russian military statements by the Ukrainian outlet United24 Media.
The last such claim came on October 28, when Moscow said it had taken Alisivka in Kharkiv Oblast and Barylivka in Sumy Oblast.
The pause follows a month in which Ukraine, not Russia, was the side gaining ground.
Operation Vivaldi closes with 277 square kilometers retaken
On October 14, Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps announced the end of the fourth and final phase of Operation Vivaldi, an offensive run on the Lyman axis in Donetsk Oblast since late May.
According to the Kyiv Independent, the corps retook the villages of Zelena Dolyna, Lypove, and Kolodiazi and regained another 101 square kilometers in the final stage alone.
Across all four phases, the operation recovered 277 square kilometers of territory and 16 settlements, and inflicted an estimated 8,000 losses on Russian forces, Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the 3rd Army Corps, said in the announcement.
“Four seasons of ‘Vivaldi’ are over, but the music continues,” Biletskyi told the Kyiv Independent, suggesting further operations would follow.
ISW: Russia has lost more than it has gained since September
Ukraine’s recent gains are part of a broader shift documented by the Institute for the Study of War. The Washington-based think tank assesses that since September 1, Russian forces have lost a net 241 square kilometers in Ukraine, meaning Ukrainian recaptures have exceeded Russian advances by that margin.
The slowdown is also visible across the year. Al Jazeera, citing ISW data, reports Russia has seized 117.38 square kilometers in Ukraine during the first ten months of 2026, at an average rate of 0.38 square kilometers per day. In 2025, Russia had taken 5,304 square kilometers, at 13.25 square kilometers per day.
ISW’s November 1 assessment states that Russian forces lost ground on the battlefield in October 2026 for the second month in a row, while suffering their highest monthly casualties of the war so far.
