The midterms will be a referendum on the GOP’s alignment with tech overlords over the public they’re meant to serveWelcome back to How We Win, a Guardian opinion series with leading thinkers, offering bold ideas for America’s political future. Last week, Robert Reich highlighted the link between corruption and affordability. Today’s edition was written by Guardian US columnist Rebecca Solnit. Sign up for future editions here.“The world should accept some bad things happening,” Sam Altman, the he
The midterms will be a referendum on the GOP’s alignment with tech overlords over the public they’re meant to serve
Welcome back to How We Win, a Guardian opinion series with leading thinkers, offering bold ideas for America’s political future. Last week, Robert Reich highlighted the link between corruption and affordability. Today’s edition was written by Guardian US columnist Rebecca Solnit. Sign up for future editions here.
“The world should accept some bad things happening,” Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, said recently, “for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.” Like so many things tech oligarchs say, it’s incoherent, since Altman would like to deny the world and the people in it the agency to decide whether or not we should accept his bad things. Surveys show that most Americans would like to pause AI; opposition to AI datacenters is a factor in many races in the midterm elections. People are outraged and anxious about what tech hath wrought, mad enough to fight back in what is coming to seem like a human v machine battle.
Russia’s Rubicon drone unit, which is sent to hunt Ukrainian drone pilots, was not used to being hunted itself, Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi told journalists on 19 October. He was summing up Operation Vivaldi, which his Third Army Corps fought in northern Donetsk Oblast from May to mid-October. Once its pilots realized they were being killed, Rubicon’s morale dropped sharply, he said.
Russia has fought for 12 years to take all of Donetsk Oblast, and Sloviansk and Kramatorsk anchor
Russia’s Rubicon drone unit, which is sent to hunt Ukrainian drone pilots, was not used to being hunted itself, Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi told journalists on 19 October. He was summing up Operation Vivaldi, which his Third Army Corps fought in northern Donetsk Oblast from May to mid-October. Once its pilots realized they were being killed, Rubicon’s morale dropped sharply, he said.
Russia has fought for 12 years to take all of Donetsk Oblast, and Sloviansk and Kramatorsk anchor the fortress belt of cities Ukraine still holds there. Vivaldi retook 277 km² in northern Donetsk Oblast. Biletskyi says it destroyed Russia’s bridgehead on the Chornyi Zherebets River and forced Moscow to drop its plan to bypass Lyman from the north and encircle the two cities. On that front, the Third Corps had flagged Rubicon, Russia’s elite drone unit, as a threat.
Hunting the hunters
Once a Rubicon position was found, the Third Assault Brigade and the KRAKEN drone regiment committed any number of FPV and bomber drones to destroy its crews, Biletskyi said.
The brigade’s commander, Yaroslav Levenets, said his troops prepared for Rubicon’s arrival and concentrated on killing its pilots. He gave no details.
“Not stable in defense,” Levenets said of Rubicon’s troops.
They dislike sitting in trenches, he said, and under pressure they grow nervous and change positions.
An FPV drone. Illustrative photo: ArmyInform
Named for four seasons
Biletskyi said the name was chosen at the very start of planning, in winter 2025–2026, many months before the operation began. The original plan had four stages, one for each season, and later grew to slightly more, ArmyInform reported.
When he first unveiled the operation in September, he put it this way:
“Vivaldi, as is known, has four seasons. And this is only the first one.”
He credited two planners, known by the call signs Yurist and Leshyi. Leshyi, an assault soldier wounded seven times who later moved to staff work, was killed. Yurist was seriously wounded.
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Ukraine blocks Russia from outflanking its fortress cities in Donbas, retaking 277 square kilometers and hitting 8,000 Russian troops
A new hand at the Third Corps
Major Dmytro Rohoziuk is now acting commander of the Third Army Corps, the corps press service said on 20 October. The press service said the move is not a transfer, and Biletskyi keeps his formal post as corps commander while he leads the “Center” grouping of the Third, 11th, and 19th corps.
Major Dmytro Rohoziuk, acting commander of Ukraine’s Third Army Corps. Photo: Armed Forces of Ukraine
Rohoziuk took over the 60th Mechanized Brigade in October 2025. Its previous commander was arrested in January after the State Bureau of Investigation accused him of embezzling about $1 million in weapons procurement. The brigade fought in all four phases of Vivaldi and retook Kolodiazi without street fighting.
Ukrainian troops capture a Russian infiltrator carrying a Russian flag during Operation Vivaldi in northern Donetsk Oblast. Photo: Third Army Corps
Biletskyi also declined command of the Ground Forces, which oversee mobilization.
“There’s no point taking on something you don’t truly believe you can improve,” he said.
Biletskyi’s count
Russian losses in Vivaldi topped 8,000 troops, and about 270 Russian soldiers were taken prisoner, Biletskyi said. More than 20 officers surrendered, including a chief of staff and three company commanders.
The territory matters less than disrupting Russia’s strategic plan, he said. Russian forces still press toward Dobropillia, where Ukraine is counterattacking.
After Houthis escalated their attacks on Saudi Arabia, the US turned down calls from MBS for helpFor years, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, cultivated a close relationship with Donald Trump and his son-in-law and former top adviser, Jared Kushner. The prince understood the president’s transactional approach to power: he signed deals to buy billions of dollars’ worth of US weapons and invested billions more in American companies.Days after Trump returned to the White House in Ja
After Houthis escalated their attacks on Saudi Arabia, the US turned down calls from MBS for help
For years, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, cultivated a close relationship with Donald Trump and his son-in-law and former top adviser, Jared Kushner. The prince understood the president’s transactional approach to power: he signed deals to buy billions of dollars’ worth of US weapons and invested billions more in American companies.
Days after Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, Prince Mohammed pledged to expand investment and trade with the US by $600bn over four years. He later promised to increase that investment to nearly $1tn, although it wasn’t entirely clear how Saudi Arabia would manage to plough a sum close to the kingdom’s entire annual GDP into a foreign economy over a few years.
Mohamad Bazzi is a Guardian US columnist. He is also director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies and a journalism professor at New York University
The chase occurred days after his ex-wife and her friend were killed. New details shed light on the role that a mobster might have played in helping Mr. Simpson.
The chase occurred days after his ex-wife and her friend were killed. New details shed light on the role that a mobster might have played in helping Mr. Simpson.
On June 17, 1994, the police engaged in a televised, slow-speed pursuit of a white Bronco carrying O.J. Simpson, who was being charged with two murders.
Ukrainian infantry encircled and retook the village of Kolodiazi north of Lyman without getting drawn into street fighting, while a drone battalion kept the sky above them shut, the battalion’s chief of staff told Suspilne on 18 October. The village fell during the fourth and final phase of Operation Vivaldi, Ukraine’s counteroffensive in northern Donetsk Oblast.
For years now, Russia has aimed to seize Lyman and cross the Siverskyi Donets River. It needs this area to encircle Ukraine’s
Ukrainian infantry encircled and retook the village of Kolodiazi north of Lyman without getting drawn into street fighting, while a drone battalion kept the sky above them shut, the battalion’s chief of staff told Suspilne on 18 October. The village fell during the fourth and final phase of Operation Vivaldi, Ukraine’s counteroffensive in northern Donetsk Oblast.
For years now, Russia has aimed to seize Lyman and cross the Siverskyi Donets River. It needs this area to encircle Ukraine’s fortress belt of Donetsk Oblast cities from the northwest, ISW assesses. Vivaldi’s four phases retook 277 km² and 16 settlements on that approach, and a veteran of the operation has said Ukraine’s assault troops suffered more than ten times fewer casualties than Russian forces doing it.
Drones over the infantry
The 60th Mechanized Brigade fought in all four phases of Vivaldi and took Kolodiazi in the last one, said the chief of staff of the brigade’s Fatum unmanned systems battalion, callsign Krash.
“Our task, as an unmanned systems battalion, was to escort and ‘close’ the air in front of our infantry to make it impossible for the enemy to hit it. To suppress all the firing assets possible,” he said.
The brigade’s 3rd Mechanized Battalion, the main striking force, encircled Kolodiazi and retook it without getting drawn into street fighting, Krash said. The 1st Mechanized Battalion kept Russian reinforcements out of the area, while drone crews suppressed artillery, hit supply runs, and worked against Russian drone operators.
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Vivaldi counteroffensive advanced after Ukraine took Russia’s drones out of the fight, ISW assesses
500 troops and 200-plus vehicles
The drone battalion killed or wounded about 500 Russian troops during the fourth phase and struck Russian armored vehicles, trucks, and motorbikes, its chief of staff said.
“More than two hundred pieces of various equipment: Grad and Uragan multiple rocket launchers, various armored vehicles, tanks, armored combat vehicles. Most of all motorbikes and quad bikes, there the count runs into the hundreds. This is our enemy’s main logistics tool,” he said.
Lyman sector now. Map: ISW
Ghost villages
The villages retaken in northern Donetsk Oblast are nearly empty of civilians, Krash said.
“It’s very typical for de-occupied settlements: these are ghost towns. You can see right away where the occupier stepped. All the settlements are under the control of the Third Army Corps, our forces stand there and prevent enemy infiltration. But civilian life in these towns is either absent or very scarce,” he said.
Third Army Corps commander Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi reported Kolodiazi’s liberation, along with Zelena Dolyna and Lypove, when he summed up Vivaldi’s fourth phase, which secured 101 km².
The employee, now fired, had said he advised government agencies in Saudi Arabia. He was also listed as a partner at a venture firm with a Saudi prince.
The employee, now fired, had said he advised government agencies in Saudi Arabia. He was also listed as a partner at a venture firm with a Saudi prince.
The San Francisco offices of OpenAI. According to a court filing, a thumb-size recording device wrapped in toilet paper was found plugged into the back of a television in an executive conference room.
Ukraine has completed its Operation Vivaldi, aimed at protecting its fortress belt cities of Donetsk Oblast, which helped Kyiv preserve the region from Russian occupation for 12 years. Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, the commander of the Third Army Corps behind the operation, has reported that the fourth phase secured 101 km² of territory. Among the latest achievements is the liberation of three settlements—Zelena Dolyna, Lypove, and Kolodiazi.
The operation's main objective was to
Ukraine has completed its Operation Vivaldi, aimed at protecting its fortress belt cities of Donetsk Oblast, which helped Kyiv preserve the region from Russian occupation for 12 years. Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, the commander of the Third Army Corps behind the operation, has reported that the fourth phase secured 101 km² of territory. Among the latest achievements is the liberation of three settlements—Zelena Dolyna, Lypove, and Kolodiazi.
The operation's main objective was to move Ukrainian troops into more advantageous defensive positions, Biletskyi said in the first days after the operation was made public. Vivaldi has now summed up the results of all four phases: Ukraine has established full control over 16 settlements, liberated 277 km² of territory, and inflicted 8,000 casualties on Russian forces.
Ukraine worked against Russia's deadline
During Operation Vivaldi, Ukrainian forces have prevented Russian troops from outflanking the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration and cutting the Kharkiv–Sloviansk highway, a key supply route for Ukraine’s forces in Donbas, Biletskyi says.
“We thwarted the offensive of the Zapad grouping and forced it to redeploy some units of the 1st Tank Army, which eased pressure on Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi,” Biletskyi announces.
Previously, the Institute for the Study of War noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin was confident that Russian forces would be able to seize the entire Donetsk Oblast by the end of 2026 — the Kremlin’s latest deadline for achieving this goal.
Ukraine’s military was on a mission to prevent this.
Season one: clearing russian infiltration groups
On 15 September 2026, Ukraine’s Third Army Corps announced Operation Vivaldi in northern Donetsk Oblast. During the first phase, Ukrainian troops cleared Russian groups from 75 km² of territory and liberated another 10 km².
The Third Army Corps said it had struck Russian supply routes and fuel infrastructure, prompting Russia to relocate its fuel and lubricant reserves to Voronezh Oblast. According to the corps, Russian forces lost around 1,500 troops, more than 12,000 drones, and hundreds of pieces of equipment.
Season two: liberation of Shandryholove and Derylove
On 20 September, the Third Army Corps reported the liberation of Shandryholove and Derylove and the establishment of full control over Drobysheve.
During the second season, Russian forces lost another 800 troops, bringing their total losses across the first two seasons to more than 3,000, according to the corps.
During the first two seasons of the operation, Ukrainian troops and attached units regained control of 125 km² of territory, including 50 km² that had been fully liberated.
Soldiers of Ukraine’s Third Army Corps. Source: Ukraine’s Third Army Corps
The first phase of Vivaldi involved eliminating Russian groups that had infiltrated Ukrainian positions, explained the commander of a battalion in the 125th Brigade, callsign Darwin, per ArmyInform. After clearing those groups, the Defense Forces moved on to the operation’s second phase, using reconnaissance drones to detect Russian forces, he added.
For this, Ukraine used UAVs and ground robotic systems.
“The Third Army Corps was the first in the world to begin deploying ground robotic systems by air. Our heavy bombers deliver kamikaze ground robotic systems more than 10 kilometers behind enemy lines,” Biletskyi noted.
Season three: advances near Novе and Ridkodub
On 28 September, the Third Army Corps reported the liberation of Nove, Ridkodub, and Katerynivka and the restoration of control over Karpivka and Novomykhailivka. Ukrainian forces regained another 51 km² of territory, bringing the total area liberated since the start of the offensive to 176 km². Russian forces lost around 2,000 troops, and more than 250 were taken prisoner, the corps said in its summary of the operation’s third phase.
Settlements Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps says it liberated during Operation Vivaldi north of Lyman, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, as of 28 September 2026. Map: ISW
“The Russians were convinced that the main axis of attack was Shandryholove–Zelena Dolyna. This led it to squander its reserves in counterattacks along that very axis. The Russians slept through the actual strike, which was focused on capturing Nove,” Biletskyi said.
Operation Vivaldi aimed to disrupt Russia’s plans in Donetsk Oblast
The need for Operation Vivaldi arose amid Russian attempts to encircle Ukraine’s fortified belt in Donetsk Oblast. Ukrainian forces conducted preparatory efforts aimed at degrading Russia’s offensive capabilities, including strikes on Russian drone operators, the Institute for the Study of War reported on 9 October.
Ukrainian counterattacks in the Lyman direction and east of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk were intended to complicate Russian efforts to seize the fortified belt in Donetsk Oblast, the report noted.
The corps advanced gradually, reclaiming small areas instead of attempting a large-scale breakthrough.
A Russian attack on Sloviansk on 13 October wounded members of a Ukrainian Red Cross team, the Ukrainian Red Cross Society reported. The same day, a Russian bomb hit the city’s invincibility point, one of the state-run hubs where residents warm up and charge phones when power goes out.
Help is getting harder to reach in Sloviansk. Public transport stopped after a Russian strike on two buses in nearby Kramatorsk killed 30 people on 8 October. From 1 November, a curfew from 16:00 to 11:00
A Russian attack on Sloviansk on 13 October wounded members of a Ukrainian Red Cross team, the Ukrainian Red Cross Society reported. The same day, a Russian bomb hit the city’s invincibility point, one of the state-run hubs where residents warm up and charge phones when power goes out.
Help is getting harder to reach in Sloviansk. Public transport stopped after a Russian strike on two buses in nearby Kramatorsk killed 30 people on 8 October. From 1 November, a curfew from 16:00 to 11:00 will cover nearly all of Donetsk Oblast’s free territory. The people providing help are hit too. Russian drones struck three ambulances in Kramatorsk on 5 October. In August, a Russian strike destroyed a World Health Organization humanitarian warehouse in Dnipro.
Team had moved from Lyman
Three members of the society’s Lyman city branch were hurt. The branch had moved to Sloviansk because of the security situation and kept working there. All three were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds and burns. The building where the team worked took heavy damage, and a fire caused by the attack damaged the organization’s property.
The society’s Donetsk Oblast branch later added that a fourth person suffered a concussion, and that all four were hospitalized. The Red Cross condemned attacks on civilian infrastructure and humanitarian workers.
Bomb hit the warming center
The strike came at 12:45 in the Lisnyi microdistrict, Sloviansk city military administration head Vadym Liakh wrote. He later identified the weapon as a FAB-250, a 250-kg air-dropped bomb. Eight people were injured, and five apartment blocks were damaged, Liakh said. He described the warming center’s building as damaged, while Suspilne Donbas reported it destroyed.
The aftermath of the Russian attack on Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast, 13 October 2026. Photo: Donetsk Regional Organization of the Ukrainian Red Cross Society/Facebook
Two Russian strikes on Sloviansk that day killed at least one person, Donetsk Oblast head Vadym Filashkin wrote. Liakh said a Russian attack on the Semenivka neighborhood killed a 55-year-old woman. On 14 October, Filashkin reported that Russian attacks killed three people across Donetsk Oblast on 13 October, in Sloviansk, Druzhkivka, and Starovarvarivka.
A fight over a datacentre in Utah has been a testing ground for citizens’ assemblies, paving the way to oversightWhat’s your “(p)doom” – the percentage chance that rogue AI will create an existential catastrophe? Judging by their recent warnings, it is rising among tech bosses.On 25 September, OpenAI paused training of its latest frontier models as reports of AI agents going rogue mounted. A day later, Australia’s Senate asked the bosses of OpenAI and Anthropic to appear before an inquiry after
A fight over a datacentre in Utah has been a testing ground for citizens’ assemblies, paving the way to oversight
What’s your “(p)doom” – the percentage chance that rogue AI will create an existential catastrophe? Judging by their recent warnings, it is rising among tech bosses.
On 25 September, OpenAI paused training of its latest frontier models as reports of AI agents going rogue mounted. A day later, Australia’s Senate asked the bosses of OpenAI and Anthropic to appear before an inquiry after rogue OpenAI agents broke into US government websites and an Australian health portal. Both declined.
Richard Wilson is the CEO of Iswe Foundation and Clara Long is the co-executive director of the Bloom Project
Mayor Karen Bass and her former ally, the City Council member Nithya Raman, attacked each other’s records on Tuesday night in the last televised debate before the election.
Mayor Karen Bass and her former ally, the City Council member Nithya Raman, attacked each other’s records on Tuesday night in the last televised debate before the election.
Ukraine wants the EU to force Moscow into a ceasefire with frozen Russian assets, trade and transit embargoes, maritime bans, and entry bans, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X after the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on 12 October 2026. He also welcomed new EU sanctions listings adopted that day and progress in Ukraine’s EU accession talks.
Kyiv has spent this month laying out truce formats it would accept while awaiting Russia’s position on talks, and the le
Ukraine wants the EU to force Moscow into a ceasefire with frozen Russian assets, trade and transit embargoes, maritime bans, and entry bans, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X after the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on 12 October 2026. He also welcomed new EU sanctions listings adopted that day and progress in Ukraine’s EU accession talks.
Kyiv has spent this month laying out truce formats it would accept while awaiting Russia’s position on talks, and the levers it is pressing the EU to use include frozen Russian assets that EU leaders failed to agree on tapping last December.
The pressure Kyiv wants from the EU
Sybiha called it “devastating pressure.” He also wants Russian combatants and their families barred from the EU, maximum visa restrictions, and Russia’s isolation in culture and sports.
I was pleased to attend the EU Foreign Affairs Council today.
It is time for Europe to define its strong role. Our future and our security are in our hands.
Now is the time for real European pressure on Moscow. Not half-measures, but devastating pressure: frozen assets, trade… pic.twitter.com/AnI8h6HXbs
His post named three types of ceasefire—energy, food security, and a full ceasefire—without saying whether Kyiv would accept them separately. Earlier this month, he told journalists Ukraine was ready for an energy and Black Sea ceasefire “but only in such a combination.”
New sanctions listings and two more accession clusters
The minister welcomed the EU’s 12 October adoption of new sanctions listings against Russia—the largest single expansion of the bloc’s blacklist. EU ambassadors agreed on the 1,646 names on 7 October. They include 1,569 tied to Russia’s military industry and 77 to its so-called State Duma elections. The listings are separate from the EU’s 22nd sanctions package, which the EU has yet to adopt.
He also welcomed the EU’s “green light” for opening two more clusters in Ukraine’s EU accession talks: Internal Market, and Competitiveness and Inclusive Growth. The formal opening was scheduled for an intergovernmental conference on 13 October.
Front-line briefing and aid requests
Sybiha said he briefed European colleagues on the front-line situation, Russia’s plans, and ways to deprive it of its advantages, and that he passed partners specific requests for aid. He reaffirmed Ukraine’s commitment to reforms.
Two major Republican super PACs are said to be withdrawing cash from the races of the incumbent Representatives Thomas H. Kean Jr. of New Jersey and Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa in an effort to triage the midterm map.
Two major Republican super PACs are said to be withdrawing cash from the races of the incumbent Representatives Thomas H. Kean Jr. of New Jersey and Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa in an effort to triage the midterm map.
The attorney general of the United Arab Emirates said that the co-pilot had been inspired by the Sept. 11 attacks after years of developing extreme Islamist views.
The attorney general of the United Arab Emirates said that the co-pilot had been inspired by the Sept. 11 attacks after years of developing extreme Islamist views.
Emirati investigators said that the co-pilot in the FlyDubai flight had intended to crash into Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv “with the aim of causing the greatest possible loss of life.”
Ukraine is working on a satellite system of its own, something similar to SpaceX's Starlink, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 4 October, Interfax-Ukraine reported. He argued Kyiv should be free to turn Starlink on Russian military targets, warning that China and other states will share comparable satellite technology with Moscow within months. Ukraine's battlefield communications still ride on a network owned by Elon Musk, who has clashed with Kyiv and once limited its warti
Ukraine is working on a satellite system of its own, something similar to SpaceX's Starlink, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 4 October, Interfax-Ukraine reported. He argued Kyiv should be free to turn Starlink on Russian military targets, warning that China and other states will share comparable satellite technology with Moscow within months. Ukraine's battlefield communications still ride on a network owned by Elon Musk, who has clashed with Kyiv and once limited its wartime use.
Low-orbit satellite internet has turned into a frontline utility that a single company or government can switch on or off, and both armies are now racing to own that link instead of renting it. Control of the network decides whose drones can see the battlefield and fly through the jamming to strike it—leverage Kyiv has gone without while its connection rode on hardware it does not run.
Working on a Starlink of its own
Zelenskyy said there was groundwork in place and that Ukraine was working on a system similar to Starlink. He called it fair for Ukraine to aim Starlink at military sites inside Russia. The timing is the reason, he said: some states will share the technology with Russia late this year or early next, and the Chinese are among them. Moscow is already fielding its own Starlink-style constellation, Rassvet, though for now it reaches Ukraine only in brief passes.
Ukraine's troops and drones lean heavily on Starlink, a network Kyiv neither owns nor controls. Musk has used that control against Kyiv before: in 2022 SpaceX refused a Ukrainian request to extend Starlink over occupied Crimea for a drone strike on Russia's warships, and it has since restricted the network's use for drone operations.
Sanctions, and satellites of its own
Zelenskyy has asked US President Donald Trump several times to sanction the Russian and Chinese companies building Russia's Rassvet network, most recently at the UN General Assembly in New York, he said in a recent Financial Times interview.
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The EU sanctioned Russia’s Starlink rival but not the company that builds it. Experts call that the gap that matters
Denys Shtilerman, co-founder and chief designer at Ukrainian defense company Fire Point, told the Financial Times in May that the firm had launched two satellites this year and planned dozens more in 2027, aiming to reduce reliance on the US government and Western tech companies. To strike deep inside Russia and gather intelligence, he has said, Ukraine needs its own constellation covering all of Russia.
Russia lost almost 300 km² of Ukrainian territory on net between March and September 2026, and it likely gained no ground in September despite its heaviest casualties of the year, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed. Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi accounts for much of the swing. The think tank notes that Ukraine's secrecy around such counterattacks makes exact monthly tallies hard.
Russia has pressed attacks along the entire front through 2026, accepting mass casualties for m
Russia lost almost 300 km² of Ukrainian territory on net between March and September 2026, and it likely gained no ground in September despite its heaviest casualties of the year, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed. Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi accounts for much of the swing. The think tank notes that Ukraine's secrecy around such counterattacks makes exact monthly tallies hard.
Russia has pressed attacks along the entire front through 2026, accepting mass casualties for marginal ground, and its battlefield year has already been called its worst since 2023. Its losses have been outpacing its recruitment for months.
Russia came out behind in September
Russian forces seized 175.54 km² in September but lost 256.35 km², a net loss of 80.81 km², or minus 2.69 km² a day, ISW calculated. The balance stayed negative when Russian infiltrations into areas Russia does not control are counted: Russia seized or infiltrated 143.2 km² but lost 318.38 km², a net loss of 175.18 km².
Russian territorial gains in Ukraine with and without infiltrations, April–September 2026. Graphic: ISW
The September figures include at least 147 km² near Lyman that Ukraine liberated over earlier months, but that ISW recorded only once details of Operation Vivaldi emerged in September. The operation already disrupted Russia's plan to encircle the Fortress Belt cities from the Lyman and Dobropillia directions.
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Ukraine’s Vivaldi counteroffensive disrupts Russia’s plan to encircle Donetsk Fortress Belt – ISW
Almost 300 km² lost since March
Russia's rate of seizing territory dropped sharply in March 2026 and has stayed low, or even negative, since, ISW found. After controlling for the gains Ukraine made during Vivaldi, Russia lost control of 293.59 km² net across the front since March. Counting infiltrations, it gained a presence in only 174.44 km² over the same period.
ISW's monthly chart shows net Russian losses of 116.01 km² in April and 281.1 km² in May, modest gains in June, July, and August, and a net loss again in September. Oleksandr Syrskyi, then Ukraine's commander-in-chief, reported in June that Ukrainian forces had recaptured 100 km² in May.
Russian casualties by month as reported by Ukraine's General Staff, April–September 2026. Graphic: ISW
More than 46,000 casualties for no ground
Russian forces suffered 46,230 casualties in September, Ukraine's General Staff reported. It is the third straight month above 40,000 and the highest monthly toll of 2026, by Kyiv's count. Monthly Russian casualties have climbed from 32,980 in April to 42,860 in July and 42,020 in August, ISW's chart shows.
Russia keeps suffering heavy personnel losses while making extremely limited or even net-negative territorial gains, ISW said, and its current force generation system still recruits fewer soldiers than it needs to replace them.
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Russia’s mass drone attacks on Ukraine have a goal—likely Ukraine’s capitulation by spring 2027, ISW says
Ukraine's effective operational security around Vivaldi, likely to continue in future counterattacks, will make meaningful month-to-month assessments of Russian gains and losses hard, the think tank added.
Bulgaria donated 110 BTR-60 armored personnel carriers, too thinly armored to carry infantry into a drone war
Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps fills them with anti-tank mines, drives them by remote control, and detonates them inside Russian bunkers
A jet with a glide bomb does the same job. It costs a hundred times more
Bulgaria gave Ukraine 110 BTR-60 armored personnel carriers. They are 1960s vehicles, too thinly armored to carry infantry anywhere near a front line patrolled by expl
Bulgaria donated 110 BTR-60 armored personnel carriers, too thinly armored to carry infantry into a drone war
Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps fills them with anti-tank mines, drives them by remote control, and detonates them inside Russian bunkers
A jet with a glide bomb does the same job. It costs a hundred times more
Bulgaria gave Ukraine 110 BTR-60 armored personnel carriers. They are 1960s vehicles, too thinly armored to carry infantry anywhere near a front line patrolled by explosive drones. So Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps found another use for them during Operation Vivaldi, its counteroffensive north of Lyman. Fill one with anti-tank mines, rig it for remote control, drive it at a Russian bunker, and set it off.
Packing potentially dozens of TM-62 anti-tank mines, the speedy BTR-60s become what's called vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, or VBIEDs. Once a favorite weapon of insurgents battling US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, VBIEDs have found a new niche in Russia's wider war on Ukraine as unmanned demolition systems.
"To break through the enemy's defenses, the 3rd Army Corps employed its own invention, Soviet BTR-60s converted into robotic kamikaze complexes," the corps stated. "They were used to demolish the enemy's strongest fortifications." If an enemy strongpoint is too heavily protected to bomb from the air but exposed to attack from the ground, send in a VBIED.
Білецький: «Противник був введений в оману і проспав справжній удар»
Третій армійський корпус звільнив Нове, Рідкодуб і Катеринівку та відновив контроль над Карпівкою і Новомихайлівкою. Втрати противника — 2000 живою силою, понад 250 росіян захоплені в полон. Так закінчився… pic.twitter.com/GSV4LFG3gj
The Russians were the first to deploy vehicular IEDs in the current war, but the Ukrainians may have mastered the tactic. It's one thing to rig an explosives-filled MT-LB tractor or T-55 tank to roll straight forward without direct human control, as the Russians once did. It's another to rig an explosive BTR-60 to maneuver before going off, as the 3rd Army Corps' VBIEDs clearly did.
On 28 September, announcing the close of Vivaldi's third phase, the 3rd Army Corps released drone footage depicting one of the explosive BTRs blasting a Russian strongpoint north of the town of Lyman. The sheer scale of the explosion is testimony to the VBIED's destructive potential. And the trail the BTR leaves in the grass in the heavily edited video indicates the Ukrainians can steer their VBIEDs around obstacles and guide them to precision strikes.
A BTR-60 VBIED explodes. 3rd Army Corps capture.
Why it gets there
A slow wheeled vehicle crossing open ground toward a fortified position should not survive the trip. In most sectors it would not. What makes the tactic work north of Lyman is a condition the 3rd Army Corps built into Vivaldi before its assault groups moved: Ukrainian air defense and electronic warfare threw a protective dome over the battle area, blinding Russian drones so they could not read the operation's design or strike what was moving through it.
Ukraine liberates area above Lyman in Operation Vivaldi. Map: Euromaidan Press
Robots have played critical roles in each phase of Vivaldi. Surveillance drones have watched from overhead. One-way attack drones have pummeled Russian positions and supply lines. Heavy bomber drones have not only dropped bombs, they've also airlifted explosive unmanned ground vehicles into position so the UGVs can roll right through the front doors of Russian bunkers.
The self-exploding BTR-60s are too big to airlift, but that's the point. A small UGV might carry a few tens of kilograms of explosives. A remote-controlled BTR-60 can easily haul hundreds of kilograms.
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Ukraine outfoxes Russia near Donetsk’s fortress belt with Soviet BTR-60s rebuilt as kamikaze robots, storms a key hub and takes 250 Russian prisoners
The arithmetic
It's not impossible to take out a VBIED before it strikes, of course. Mines, anti-tank missiles, and even concentrated gunfire can stop a vehicular bomb in its tracks. But losing one of the aged BTR-60s costs Ukraine very little. The vehicles are too thinly armored for use as front-line infantry transports anyway. You might as well convert them into bombs.
That is the whole case for the tactic. A manned fighter jet lobbing a precision glide bomb is the preferred approach to bunker-busting. But it costs tens of thousands of dollars an hour to keep a jet in the air, and a single glide bomb can cost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's unclear how much it costs to convert a BTR into a VBIED. It could be just a few thousand.
And it reduces Russian fortifications without risking any Ukrainian lives. That's the philosophy underpinning all of the 3rd Army Corps' robot-first tactics. "This is exactly the direction of the corps' development set by Brig. Gen. Andrii Biletskyi," the corps stated, "to reduce the number of fighters in the most dangerous areas and replace them with robots."
Vivaldi began in mid-April under an information blackout that held for five months. The corps says it has regained control of 176 sq km across three of a planned four phases, around half of that de-occupied outright, and taken more than 250 Russian prisoners. Those figures are the corps' own and have not been independently verified.
Sometimes the robots doing that work are 60-year-old APCs modified for an explosive one-way mission.
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Ukraine retook 240 square km north of Lyman and nobody reported it for three months
Ukraine likely neutralized Russia's drone defenses north of Lyman before sending armor into the third phase of its Vivaldi counteroffensive, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed. An intermediate-range strike campaign against Russian logistics and electronic warfare paved the way, the think tank said.
Drones have made this front so deadly that armor now mostly fights from kilometers back. That is what makes Ukraine's armored push onto fortified positions near Lyman stand out
Ukraine likely neutralized Russia's drone defenses north of Lyman before sending armor into the third phase of its Vivaldi counteroffensive, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed. An intermediate-range strike campaign against Russian logistics and electronic warfare paved the way, the think tank said.
Drones have made this front so deadly that armor now mostly fights from kilometers back. That is what makes Ukraine's armored push onto fortified positions near Lyman stand out. Russia has already shifted its effort south toward Sloviansk after losing the Lyman pincer.
Armor reached Russian bunkers without drawing drone strikes
To break the strongest Russian fortifications, Ukraine used old Soviet BTR-60 armored personnel carriers rebuilt as remote-controlled explosive vehicles, the 3rd Army Corps says.
Ukrainian forces drove them up to heavy Russian fortifications without coming under Russian drone strikes, ISW noted. The think tank said this indicates Ukraine neutralized or otherwise negated Russia's drone defenses in the area.
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New Vivaldi tactic: Ukraine’s ground robots, each carrying two Bullspike grenade launchers, attack Russian positions and then detonate inside their shelters
Strikes on fuel starved Russia's jammers
Ukraine achieved tactical drone overmatch through extensive shaping operations and an intermediate-range strike campaign, ISW said. Those strikes targeted the Russian drones and electronic warfare (EW) systems that would otherwise have hunted the advancing vehicles.
The 3rd Army Corps reported on 17 September that strikes on Russian logistics in occupied Luhansk Oblast had degraded Russian fuel supplies to the front, ISW wrote that day. The corps said that strained Russia's ability to use drones and EW against Ukrainian drones. EW systems consume a lot of power, and Russian troops run them on diesel generators, ISW explained.
Deputy corps commander Maksym Zhorin credited strict information silence and a "Protective Drone" system of EW assets, according to the same assessment. He said it helped neutralize around 20,000 Russian drones. The corps had earlier described mapping Russian command posts and striking them to sow panic.
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Ukraine’s Vivaldi counteroffensive near Lyman just got help from behind Russian lines: partisans say they cut rail supply to three Russian regiments, no explosion needed
Five settlements and 2,000 Russian losses
The corps liberated Nove, Ridkodub, and Katerynivka and restored control over Karpivka and Novomykhailivka, it said on 28 September. The phase added 51 km², bringing the total since the offensive began to 176 km².
Russian losses reached 2,000 personnel, and more than 250 Russians were taken prisoner, according to the corps. Corps commander Andrii Biletskyi said a feint from Shandryholove toward Zelena Dolyna drew Russian reserves away from the real target, Nove.
The first two phases had reportedly cleared more than 125 km² north of Lyman.
En compagnie d’une jeune métisse surnommée la Grande Sauterelle, un écrivain part à la recherche de son frère Théo, dont il est sans nouvelles depuis plusieurs années. Amorcé à Gaspé, au Québec, son voyage le conduira jusqu’à San Francisco, non sans un détour du côté de l’Amérique profonde, par la route des pionniers. Volkswagen Blues est un road novel où l’on croise les fantômes de quelques « clochards célestes ». Si l’Amérique s’est construite dans la violence, Jack et la Grande Sauterelle réc
En compagnie d’une jeune métisse surnommée la Grande Sauterelle, un écrivain part à la recherche de son frère Théo, dont il est sans nouvelles depuis plusieurs années. Amorcé à Gaspé, au Québec, son voyage le conduira jusqu’à San Francisco, non sans un détour du côté de l’Amérique profonde, par la route des pionniers. Volkswagen Blues est un road novel où l’on croise les fantômes de quelques « clochards célestes ». Si l’Amérique s’est construite dans la violence, Jack et la Grande Sauterelle récusent cet héritage et aspirent à la paix. C’est aussi un roman d’amour émouvant et feutré, tout en retenue, où domine – comme dans la conquête de l’Ouest – la soif de la liberté.
Réalisation : Marie-Hélène Frenette-Assad
Mixage sonore : Frédéric Grenon et Patrick Knup
Musique : APM
Publié en 2015 | Leméac Éditeur, collection Nomade | 336 pages | Tout public
— Permalien
Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps has defeated Russia at the key settlement of Nove in Donetsk Oblast by pointing it the wrong way. Russia has poured its reserves into counterattacks on a feint axis and "slept through" the real strike, which took the important hub in the village and closed the decisive third season of the Vivaldi offensive, commander Andrii Biletskyi said.
Vivaldi is Ukraine's counteroffensive aimed at disrupting Russian forces' plans to encircle the fortress-belt cities in Done
Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps has defeated Russia at the key settlement of Nove in Donetsk Oblast by pointing it the wrong way. Russia has poured its reserves into counterattacks on a feint axis and "slept through" the real strike, which took the important hub in the village and closed the decisive third season of the Vivaldi offensive, commander Andrii Biletskyi said.
Vivaldi is Ukraine's counteroffensive aimed at disrupting Russian forces' plans to encircle the fortress-belt cities in Donetsk Oblast from the north and south. Among them are Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Kostiantynivka. These cities have helped hold back Russian forces since 2014.
Over its first two "seasons," the 3rd Army Corps and attached units have retaken more than 125 square kilometers, half of it de-occupied outright, and inflicted more than 3,000 casualties on Russian forces.
The operation in Nove was its "third season," Biletskyi said, the turning point of the whole operation. The corps liberated Nove, Ridkodub, and Katerynivka and restored control of Karpivka and Novomykhailivka, adding 51 square kilometers, bringing the total liberated since the offensive began to 176. Ukrainian forces have taken 250 Russians captive.
The feint drew Russia's reserves
The victory, by Biletskyi's account, was won by deception.
"The enemy was convinced the main direction of the strike was Shandryholove–Zelena Dolyna," he revealed, and it burned its reserves counterattacking there.
He added that the Russians slept through the real strike, which was concentrated on taking Nove. The village was the prize, a key Russian hub on the bridgehead, ringed by heights that command the surrounding ground.
"Who controls the heights holds the initiative," Biletskyi said.
By spending its reserves on the wrong axis, he suggested, Russia had little left to hold Nove when the real assault arrived.
Old APCs crack the defense
To break the strongest fortifications, the corps said, it used a homemade weapon: Soviet BTR-60 armored carriers converted into remote-controlled kamikaze robots, driven into Russia's toughest positions and detonated.
In 2024, the Ukrainian forces received another local upgrade of the post-Soviet BTR-60 wheeled armored personnel carrier. This time it was fitted with the BM-7 "Parus" turret, known from the BTR-4 "Bucephalus" The main armament consisted of a 30 mm ZTM-1 automatic cannon paired with a 7.62 mm KT-7.62 universal machine gun.
Additional armament might include a set of four anti-tank guided missile launchers mounted on the sides, or two launchers and a 30 mm KBA-117 automatic grenade launcher. As a result, this upgraded BTR-60 saw a significant improvement in firepower, although the vehicle still has very weak armor and less-than-optimal access to the troop compartment.
It was the latest of the corps' robotic improvisations in Vivaldi, which have included air-dropped ground drones and Bullspike grenade-launcher-armed UGVs. They are Bulgarian hand-held, rocket-propelled anti-tank grenade launchers based on the Soviet RPG-22, which the Bulgarian defense industry previously produced under license.
The corps has leaned on such machines throughout the operation to keep its infantry out of the deadliest fights.
Whole units surrender
As the defense broke down, Russians gave up in groups, including officers, pilots, and artillery soldiers, the corps said. The 3rd Assault Brigade carried much of the fighting, while the 3rd Border Guard Detachment, named for the fallen Colonel Yevhen Pikus, retook Ridkodub and dug in on the new line, with the 10th Mobile Border Guard Detachment "DOZOR" taking an active part in the assault.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) published a map in its analytical report on 24 September that contrasts the claimed Russian encirclement with the location of Russian forces as assessed by the experts. Based on the evidence observed by ISW, the nearest area where Russian forces are present is 10.2 kilometers from the southeastern outskirts of Dobropillia.
Russia has been spreading disinformation about its successes around Dobropillia as part of what ISW calls a cognitive warfare
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) published a map in its analytical report on 24 September that contrasts the claimed Russian encirclement with the location of Russian forces as assessed by the experts. Based on the evidence observed by ISW, the nearest area where Russian forces are present is 10.2 kilometers from the southeastern outskirts of Dobropillia.
Russia has been spreading disinformation about its successes around Dobropillia as part of what ISW calls a cognitive warfare effort to portray Ukrainian defenses as on the verge of collapse. Russia's Defense Ministry published a map claiming the city was surrounded. ISW's own map challenges it. The Ukrainian military says the city remains under its control.
Russian Defense Ministry claims it is already destroying encircled Ukrainian troops in Dobropillia and moving further
Units of Russia's Center Grouping of Forces continue combat operations against encircled Ukrainian forces in the Dobropillia area of Donetsk Oblast while simultaneously advancing toward Oleksandrivka, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed. ISW analysts, meanwhile, said they have not observed evidence supporting Russia's claim that the city is encircled. They also noted that Ukrainian officials "directly refute" the claim.
A Russian map showing the complete encirclement of Dobropillia. ISW and the Ukrainian Armed Forces reject this claim. Map: Russian Defense Ministry
ISW observed evidence that Russian infiltrators, small groups, were operating east and northeast of Dobropillia on 19 and 20 September. The institute did not assess that these infiltrators had consolidated their positions.
Ukrainian forces maintain positions south and northeast of Dobropillia, military observer Kostiantyn Mashovets said on 20 September, according to ISW.
Russian forces have not made major gains in the Dobropillia direction, the chief of staff of an artillery reconnaissance battalion said on 22 September, according to the institute. On the same day, a Russian milblogger described the "alleged Russian encirclement of Dobropillia" as potentially meaning not the direct presence of infantry, but only the establishment of fire control over Ukrainian logistics, including roads west of Dobropillia and toward Sviatohorivka, according to ISW.
ISW noted that Russia's pervasive military culture of lying—what Russian milbloggers themselves call "beautiful reports"—has degraded the Defense Ministry's own ability to understand the battlefield and enabled inflated claims like the Dobropillia encirclement.
Russia uses this disinformation as a "diversion"
In its statement, the Russian Defense Ministry itself described Dobropillia as a "strongly fortified settlement" whose seizure would threaten key Ukrainian supply lines running from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast toward the Fortress Belt—the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk-Druzhkivka urban agglomeration.
Russia has recently renewed its attempts to break through toward Dobropillia.
Third Army Corps Commander Andrii Biletskyi said that Russian forces sought to bypass the fortified cities through Dobropillia and link up with troops advancing from north of Lyman, rather than launch a direct assault. ISW noted on 16 September that the Vivaldi operation disrupted Russia's two-pronged plan. In its 24 September report, ISW said Russia's claims about Dobropillia were partly intended to divert attention from Ukraine's elimination of the Russian salient north of Lyman, which has likely forced Russia's command to rethink its wider encirclement plans.
Ukraine's Third Army Corps says it became the first military unit in the world to use ground robots for mine clearance inside a live offensive, sending the machines ahead of its infantry into the deadliest sectors to keep soldiers out of the line of fire, Censor.NET reported. The corps built the capability from nothing during its Operation Vivaldi counteroffensive in Donetsk Oblast.
Keeping soldiers alive has become the organizing principle of how Ukraine fights, and handing the jobs mo
Ukraine's Third Army Corps says it became the first military unit in the world to use ground robots for mine clearance inside a live offensive, sending the machines ahead of its infantry into the deadliest sectors to keep soldiers out of the line of fire, Censor.NET reported. The corps built the capability from nothing during its Operation Vivaldi counteroffensive in Donetsk Oblast.
Keeping soldiers alive has become the organizing principle of how Ukraine fights, and handing the jobs most likely to kill them to ground robots is how an army that refuses to treat its people as expendable defends the line.
Robots cleared 30 km of routes in two nights
On the Shandryholove axis, the robots cleared 30 kilometers of routes in two nights—work that two companies of sappers would have needed a full week to finish. The corps reported no losses among its sappers there. Announcing the operation's second phase, corps commander Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi said protecting personnel drives how his troops plan and fight:
"People often ask, but what about our losses? My answer: we minimize them by every possible means. In assault operations, drones and ground robots always move ahead of the infantry," he said.
Robots clear most of the mines and mine Russian routes in return
The corps says it built the system from scratch and scaled it from a single squad up to the entire corps, arguing that manual clearing would be impossible across open terrain swept by fire. Ground robots now lift roughly 60% of the anti-personnel mines in its area of responsibility. They also work in reverse, remotely mining Russian advance routes—one crew can lay up to 200 meters a day, cutting off enemy reserves. The same machines carry frontline logistics, evacuating the wounded and hauling in provisions and equipment.
Operation Vivaldi continues in Donetsk Oblast, where the corps recently air-dropped robots behind Russian lines. Its advance has disrupted Russia's plan to encircle the fortified belt of Donetsk cities. In the second phase, the Third Army Corps liberated Shandryholove and Derylove and took full control of Drobysheve. Across the operation's first two phases, it has retaken 125 square kilometers.
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