CDR Salamander - Ukraine’s Vivaldi: Blunting a Pincer

Most of the news one has heard about the Russo-Ukrainian War since the USA and Israel started their campaign against Iran in early spring has been about the expanded “Battle of the Cities” as Russia continues to pound population centers and Ukraine focuses on strategic strikes against Russian hydrocarbon industries, logistics, and commerce raiding at sea.

Both Russia and Ukraine are land powers, and that is where the important moves will take place.

Mick Ryan, as one would expect, has a great overview of what has been happening this summer.

Vivaldi: The Summer-Autumn Counteroffensive. The week’s big story was the official disclosure of an ongoing Corps-level Ukrainian counteroffensive in eastern Ukraine. It represents the second significant Ukrainian counteroffensive this year (the first was in the south) and indicates Ukraine has developed new offensive techniques that are having an impact on ground combat operations.

Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the 3rd Army Corps, confirmed on 15 September that his forces have been running an offensive codenamed Vivaldi in northern Donetsk Oblast near Lyman since roughly May, conducted under very strict operational security. There have been open-source stories about this for the last couple of weeks, including my report here once news broke about the counteroffensive, but it was good to get an update from the commander on the ground.

Ukraine claims at least 75 square kilometres cleared of Russian infiltration units, and a further 10 square kilometres liberated around Novoselivka, Oleksandrivka, Yarova and Korovyi Yar, with the settlement of Seidnie also retaken. Several open-source analysts, working from geolocated footage put the true figure considerably higher, at 200 to 240 square kilometres. This gap is probably the result of the Ukrainians not yet wanting to announce information about some ongoing elements of the operation, and reporting lags.

Biletskyi made an interesting comment that telegraphs that this operation is far from over:

Vivaldi has four seasons. This is only the first.

While drones had largely blunted the ability of both sides to maneuver, it appears that there is actually some significant movement taking place as, for the moment in Ukraine’s favor, the capability-counter-capability of drones v. armor has allowed for more effective point defense enabling the offensive.

Via David Kirichenko at the Center for European Policy Analysis,

Ukraine’s 3 Army Corps, acting under strict operational silence, has been conducting a counterattack in the Lyman sector for months. The cloud of secrecy has now been lifted, and Russian forces have lost a significant amount of territory. The operation, named Vivaldi, has so far officially cleared 75 sq km (29 sq miles), Ukrainian forces say. It is not yet over.

“In Vivaldi, as you know, there are four seasons,” Brig. Gen. Andriy Biletsky said on September 15. “And this is only the first . . . Good news is coming.”

We should not get too excited. 29 square miles (75 square kilometers) is only a bit larger than Manhattan and a little smaller than Walt Disney World. If we scaled that up proportionally for the USA, that would be about 490 square miles, or the city of Los Angeles. Not nothing, but not a lot.

That being said, it isn’t so much the amount of territory, but what it represents.

Russia’s leadership had hoped to encircle Ukraine’s formidable fortress belt in western Donbas, but the northern salient has been reduced, with Russian warbloggers claiming it will extend the battle for Donbas by a year. Credible independent sources say the Ukrainian territorial gain is even greater.

Ukraine has also been making effective use of mid-range strikes to hit Russia’s rear, softening defenses, and then using troops to retake ground. Kyiv’s forces have benefited from Russian commanders falsifying reports about their progress, leading to a lack of reinforcements and allowing Ukraine to seize the initiative. The UAF says more than 1,500 Russians have been killed and wounded, and 12,000 drones destroyed along with hundreds of vehicles.

That was Russia’s main effort for her summer offensive…and it has failed.

What is worth noting is that the Ukrainians have demonstrated, again, that armor is not dead—limited, but when used properly, essential.

The Lyman offensive shows Ukraine is improving its deployment of combined arms, a tactic it struggled to deliver during its unsuccessful counteroffensive in 2023. In the race to adapt, both sides have sought to develop the countermeasures and conditions required to restore maneuverability to the battlefield.

In July, a Russian mechanized assault in Maiak featured the Arena-M active protection system (APS), which had been modified to defend tanks against first-person view (FPV) drones. Dmytro Putiata, a Ukrainian veteran and drone warfare expert, said the Ukrainians had found the system hard to break down.

The system on just one tank “destroyed seven FPV drones,” Putiata wrote on Twitter/X. “In general, it took 15 to 20 FPV drones to destroy a tank (there were seven of them).”

Not every sector, or every terrain, is appropriate for the use of heavy armor, and commanders are having to adapt to different combat environments.

In the Donetsk-Dnipropetrovsk-Zaporizhzhia sector, Yurii, a drone operator with Ukraine’s 23rd Separate Mechanized Brigade, said tanks were scarce.

“The main focus right now is on small infantry groups moving on foot or on all-terrain vehicles, supported by drones as they advance,” he said in an interview. “In our sector, tanks are very rare because of the large kill zone extending in both directions.”

…

The concept of combined-arms warfare hasn’t changed, but the older doctrines for its use are becoming outdated.

“Tanks are used noticeably less often compared with previous years,” said Viktor, a tank operator from Ukraine’s 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade. “The survivability of the vehicles themselves has also declined because the enemy is using more advanced strike UAVs and sectors of the front have become more difficult for concealing vehicles.”

…

The new style of Ukrainian combined assaults has produced important results, such as in Lyman, but a major breakthrough will still be very difficult. Much like Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive, any limited breakthrough will face barrages of artillery and drones.

…

“Despite the difficulty in ground operations maneuver observed in eastern Ukraine over the past few years, offensive operations are still possible in modern war,” wrote retired Australian General Mick Ryan. “But they need the intellectual effort to develop new techniques to make them viable and repeatable at scale.”

In the background, larger strategic issues are moving. There is a non-zero chance that, by the end of 2027, the European political climate—and its attitude towards Ukraine—will be very different.

The French election is only seven months away with Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National looking to finally win. Not good news for Ukraine as it stands right now, but that may change.

With each election, Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland gets stronger and stronger—and the pro-Ukrainian CDU is impaling itself on the migration issue and Merkelism. Not good news for Ukraine in isolation, but more cards are yet to be played. They have 2029 for the next election at the federal level, but with Chancellor Merz unpopularity making his position increasingly unstable, who knows.

If France and Germany don’t have the stomach to continue to substantially back Ukraine…there is only so much the rest of Europe can do. The American public is not in the mood to be more concerned about Eastern Europe than Central and Western Europe are themselves.

This ain’t easy, is it?

Last man standing—and the victor will be drained, broke, and poorer than when the war started—only slightly less than the other guy.

We only have six weeks or so until bezdorizhzhia/rasputitsa kicks in and everything get stuck to the axel…so…winter offensive, anyone?

Editor’s Note: the picture of the tank at the top of the post is the same one as used in the CEPA article. I almost didn’t use it since I started coming out strongly in favor of Ukrainian self-determination 13 years ago, and have quite the record on the topic since at the OG Blog, here, the Midrats Podcast and UNCLAS Read Board Podcast—but that wouldn’t be fair to the Front Porch, as I continue to try to keep an eye on myself to avoid the death of any opinion person: audience capture and self-editing of uncomfortable truths.

Yes, I understand the unhelpful and problematic iconography that some Ukrainian units use. We could do without the Balkenkreuz, even if it does troll Russians well. It is just unhelpful. The white crosses I can explain, but there’s no avoiding the problems with the Balkenkreuz…even if you’re fighting Russians.

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