Operation ‘Vivaldi’: Ukraine says it forced more than 250 Russian soldiers to surrender in Donbas

More than 250 Russian soldiers were forced to surrender during a bold Ukrainian army operation in the eastern Donbas region, the commander of the Third Army Corps, Andriy Biletskyi, announced, as CNN reports. The operation is part of the “Vivaldi” counteroffensive under way in recent months in northern Donbas.

According to Biletskyi, Ukrainian forces used ground robots equipped with heavy weapons, launched more than 10 kilometres behind Russian lines. Commanded from an operations centre deep inside Ukrainian territory, the ground drones attacked Russian troops from a completely unexpected direction, forcing them to lay down their weapons, according to the Ukrainian account cited by CNN.

In another innovation in the operation, the Third Army Corps has turned old Soviet armoured personnel carriers into unmanned kamikaze vehicles: filled with explosives and sent toward Russian fortifications, they were detonated after reaching their target. The Ukrainian army calls these vehicles “Trojan tanks”.

A video released by the Third Corps shows dozens of Russian soldiers walking in single file through a forest, guarded by Ukrainian soldiers, and then forming up and making improvised calls. Some of the prisoners in the video say they surrendered because they “did not want to die in vain” and describe eating bark and grass and drinking water from puddles after their basic supplies ran out. CNN has not been able to independently verify the video or the Ukrainian claims, but well-known Russian military bloggers have expressed discontent over Ukrainian advances and demanded accountability for command failures and supply shortages that led to the surrenders.

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), in September Russia took about 175 square kilometres but lost 256 square kilometres elsewhere, while Operation Vivaldi helped retake about 150 square kilometres. President Volodymyr Zelensky has said 176 square kilometres have been retaken and about 5,000 Russians have been killed or wounded since the operation began, while Western intelligence services estimate Russia is losing about 40,000 soldiers a month.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday at the Valdai forum that Europe and Ukraine fear Kyiv can withstand Russian advances for only another 18-24 months, suggesting Moscow could take the rest of Donetsk even sooner. Meanwhile, the last four months have been among the deadliest for Ukrainian civilians since the full-scale invasion began in 2022, according to data reported by CNN.