Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
While many have been looking at Operation Vivaldi near Lyman, another operation has reportedly been carried out by Ukrainian special forces.
Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, known as HUR, said its Active Operations Department had wrapped up a seven-week special operation in Sumy Oblast, releasing a tally of captures, kills and strikes that is unusually specific for a Ukrainian battlefield claim.
According to a statement posted on Telegram by HUR’s Active Operations Department and relayed by Ukrinform, operators from a unit called Group 10 killed 108 Russian soldiers, wounded 157 more and captured another 29 during the two-stage raid. The force also struck more than 1,100 targets, including drone ground-control stations, artillery pieces, vehicles and fortifications.
Forty special-operations personnel took part in the active phase, HUR said, clearing more than 600 hectares of forest of Russian troops before handing the positions to Ukraine’s regular defense forces.
A northern front Russia has tried to reopen
The operation sat on a stretch of border that Russian commanders have spent months trying to pry open. Sumy Oblast lies directly across from Russia’s Kursk region, and Moscow’s forces have been pushing to pin Ukrainian units there and threaten supply routes feeding the wider eastern front.
Russian attempts to advance in northern Sumy have made limited headway through mid-October, according to the Institute for the Study of War, which noted Ukrainian counterattacks and the use of pipeline-infiltration tactics being blunted at the exits.
HUR said the Group 10 raid was aimed at “thwarting Russian invasion forces’ offensive plans and preventing them from cutting off logistical routes” in the sector.
The figures come entirely from Ukraine’s intelligence service, and the information has not been independently verified. Moscow has not commented on the operation.
Parallel momentum in the Lyman sector
The announcement coincides with Ukrainian forces completing another major phase of operations further south in the Lyman sector.
Since late May, the 3rd Army Corps of the Ukrainian Ground Forces has been conducting what became known as Operation Vivaldi. Originally planned in four phases—or “seasons,” inspiring the name—the operation’s scope was later expanded.
The Institute for the Study of War assessed that the Lyman counteroffensive dealt a severe operational defeat to Russian forces north of the Siverskyi Donets River, fundamentally disrupting Moscow’s wider campaign to encircle and seize northern Donetsk Oblast.
According to the commander of the 3rd Army Corps, Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, the four completed phases have reclaimed 277 square kilometers and inflicted an estimated 8,000 Russian casualties—figures that also remain unverified by independent monitors.
