Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps has released figures that lay bare the scale of Russia's collapse around Lyman: in the third phase of Operation Vivaldi, Ukrainian forces captured more than 250 Russian soldiers — whole units surrendering at once, officers, drone operators and artillerymen among them — while Russian personnel losses exceeded 2,000, according to corps commander Brigadier-General Andrii Biletskyi. Ukrainian footage of the operation shows dozens of prisoners gathered under guard, a scene that punctures one of the Kremlin's most cherished military myths.
An entire phase decided by surrender
The official update, delivered on September 28, caps the latest stage of an offensive Ukraine only made public on September 15. Biletskyi said Ukrainian troops liberated the villages of Ridkodub, Nove and Katerynivka, restored full control over Karpivka and Novomykhailivka, and captured Nove, a key settlement on the bridgehead Russia had fought for over the previous year. The phase reclaimed 51 square kilometres of territory, bringing the total retaken since the offensive began to 176 square kilometres in northern Donetsk Oblast.
Crucially, Biletskyi stressed this was not a trickle of individual deserters. "The idea that 'Russians don't surrender' from movies in practice turned into entire units surrendering in full — including officers, pilots and artillerymen," he said. The general added that he hoped the prisoners would soon be exchanged for Ukrainian soldiers currently held in Russian captivity.
A year of grinding erased in weeks
The psychological damage may prove greater than the territorial losses. Russian forces spent more than a year brutally grinding toward Lyman, crossing deadly supply routes and fighting for devastated forest positions to build a bridgehead meant to launch an encirclement of the city. Ukrainian forces have torn away much of that hard-won ground in a matter of weeks, and the scale of the surrenders suggests the defending force was far larger and more brittle than the Russian command publicly acknowledged — not scattered infiltration groups, but substantial committed formations that broke.
The pattern fits a wider trend. Ukraine's "I Want to Live" project, which offers Russian soldiers a way to surrender peacefully, reported in January that more than 10,000 Russian soldiers had given themselves up since the full-scale invasion began — a number that has only grown since.
Robots opened the way
The offensive's success owes much to Ukraine's unmanned arsenal. Carrier drones dropped small kamikaze ground robots up to nine miles behind the Russian frontline, completing more than 15,700 missions against command posts, shelters, logistics hubs and river crossings. Ukrainian officials say the tactic, which Biletskyi has called a historic first in warfare, killed around 3,000 Russian soldiers and recaptured dozens of square miles of occupied territory. "The enemy expects the threat from the sky, not the ground," Biletskyi has said — and where the robots arrived, Russian positions began surrendering in bulk.
Control of the high ground around Nove, the corps says, was critical to keeping the initiative, while converted Soviet-era BTR armoured personnel carriers were used as ground-based kamikaze robotic systems to breach Russian strongpoints.
The third phase is far from the end. Biletskyi has made clear the officially announced figures represent only this stage, with Ukrainian forces still advancing and dismantling the Russian salient north of Lyman. But the message of this phase is already unmistakable: the Russian army's manpower is not just dying in Donetsk — it is walking away, hundreds at a time.
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