Ukraine regains territory and captures POWs in frontline push

KYIV — Ukraine’s army pushed back Russian forces in a key part of the eastern front with Russia and captured more than 250 prisoners, a senior Ukrainian general announced on Monday.

“Russians surrendered by entire subunits, along with officers, pilots, and artillerymen,” said Gen. Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the Third Army Corps.

He said the success was the third part of Operation Vivaldi, a carefully prepared effort to recapture the initiative in the Donetsk region.

The latest phase recaptured 51 square kilometers of territory, bringing the total recovered during Vivaldi to 176 square kilometers, according to the Third Army Corps.

The operation shows that Ukraine can reuse some Russian advances. It also has significance beyond the battlefield: Kyiv sees such counterattacks as evidence to its allies — and particularly the Trump administration — that Russia’s grinding advances in Donetsk are not inevitable and that Russian leader Vladimir Putin cannot simply wait for Ukraine’s defenses and Western resolve to collapse.

Vivaldi has seen the integrated use of drones, armor, artillery and infantry against Russian forces attempting a pincer attack to seize control of Lyman, a lynchpin of the “fortress belt” cities that have stymied Russian advances for years.

“Russian forces had advanced right up to the Siverskyi Donets River, and holding Lyman as the primary defensive hub for the northern Donetsk region would have become significantly harder had they advanced further,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at Ukraine’s State National Institute for Strategic Studies and senior analyst at Come Back Alive Initiatives Center NGO.

“Any further enemy advances would have disrupted logistics and supply lines to Lyman, complicating the city’s defense,” he added.

In the operation, Ukraine emphasized the use of unmanned technology to spare its troops — from air-dropping tiny ground robots behind Russian lines to turning Soviet-era BTR-60 armored vehicles into kamikaze robots by stuffing them full of explosives and driving them into Russian fortifications.

Biletskyi said the Third Corps deceived Russian forces into believing the main Ukrainian thrust would come toward Shandryholove and Zelena Dolyna, drawing Russian reserves into counterattacks there while Ukraine struck toward Nove.

“This led them to senselessly burn through their reserves in counterattacks in that very sector. The Russians missed the real strike,” Biletskyi added.

According to Bielieskov, the result undermines Russia’s theory of victory, which he said “hinged precisely on attempts to turn local advances in the Donetsk region into strategic successes.” He added: “The goal was to create the impression Russia would inevitably capture the Donetsk region, thereby raising the question: ‘What is the point of the West helping Ukraine, or of Ukraine clinging to the region?'”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pointed to the broader battlefield picture on Sunday. “Overall, this week, across all sectors of active combat operations on the front, our units neutralized 10,660 Russian troops killed and wounded,” he said. “Every such week on the front that becomes ours — Ukrainian — in terms of the overall situation prevents Russia from mounting greater offensive activity against Ukraine.”

The operation also sends a signal to the Trump administration, which has revived its efforts to end the war by turning to its special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. “Even U.S. negotiators — such as Kushner, who are not exactly known for being sympathetic to [Ukraine’s] cause — pointed out to Putin that his promise to rapidly occupy the Donetsk region was not materializing,” Bielieskov said.

Although Ukrainian gains in the area have been independently documented by open-source battlefield monitors including DeepState, the Kremlin insisted it hasn’t suffered any setback.

 The Russian defense ministry called Ukraine’s announced success near Lyman a smokescreen “for Kyiv’s Western curators,” claiming nothing more than the unsuccessful infiltration of “the enemy’s small assault groups” is going on in the northern part of the Donetsk region.

Biletskyi, the Third Army Corps commander, said that the operation, named after Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons cycle of violin concerts, will continue.

 “Vivaldi’s music goes on,” he said.