Ukraine’s Third Army Corps command reveals a months-old counteroffensive in northern Donetsk region. Its ultimate goal remains unknown.

Filed 59m ago · Via Meduza · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Mary Celeste

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Habib M'henni · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Ukraine's Third Army Corps disclosed a counteroffensive, codenamed Vivaldi, that has been underway for about four months in the northern Donetsk region near Lyman, after pro-war Russian bloggers had already reported activity there. Commander Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi said Ukrainian forces cleared 75 square kilometers and liberated another 10, retaking the town of Serednie and claiming heavy damage to two Russian armies.

Biletskyi's figures, including roughly 1,500 Russian personnel losses and over 12,000 drones destroyed, come solely from the Ukrainian command and have not been independently verified. He declined to state the operation's ultimate objective, joking that Vivaldi has four seasons and this is only the first, while urging continued operational secrecy.

Lyman has changed hands twice already in the war, falling to Russia in 2022 and being retaken by Ukraine months later; a Russian attempt to retake it again this summer failed.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A general announces a months-old secret offensive, hands out casualty numbers nobody outside his own command can check, and then declines to say what the operation is actually for, comparing it to a piece of classical music with four movements. That's a lot of flourish for a battlefield update. If the numbers hold up under outside scrutiny, good, but a war effort explained mostly in metaphor deserves the same patience you'd give a fisherman describing the one that got away.

Source: Read the original at Meduza → Scored: Mary Celeste · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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