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.

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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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.

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.

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.

The front changes faster than any headquarters, so Ukraine’s war chief went to the people who fight on it. On 16 October, Ukrainian Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara met commanders and soldiers from front-line units to discuss the needs of the front, command practices that save lives, and ways to raise combat effectiveness, the Defense Ministry reported.

The front keeps changing, with technology, tactics and weapons shifting constantly, so decisions made far from it risk arriving late and costing lives. Khmara’s answer is to anchor ministry policy in the experience of the soldiers who fight, a continuation of the “machines over men” program.

"The front does not stand still. But the key thing is people. People will always be the foundation and the main value of the Defense Forces,” Khmara said.

He claimed that the decisions of the Ministry of Defense must take into account the experience of warriors, those who directly carry out combat missions at the front.

Ukraine's most battle-hardened brigades say their word

The meeting drew commanders from across the force, including the Airborne Assault Forces, the Marine Corps, the 93rd, 100th, 28th and 155th mechanized brigades, the 1st, 425th and 475th assault regiments, the 3rd and 59th assault brigades, and Azov.

The last one, the 1st Azov Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine, is actively fighting in the Donbas region, where units have led counter-operations to disrupt Russian advances toward fortress cities that have been holding Russia's operation since 2014.

Meanwhile, the 93rd "Kholodnyi Yar" Separate Mechanized Brigade took part in fierce battles for Ilovaisk, the Donetsk Airport, Debaltseve, and Bakhmut, as well as in the liberation of the Kharkiv Oblast. Both units are known for their extensive implementation of advanced military technologies, including ground robotic complexes, FPV strike drones, and innovative anti-drone electronic warfare systems.

Command tricks that keep soldiers alive

The talk turned on how good commanders cut their own losses. Participants discussed command approaches that help save soldiers’ lives, use resources efficiently, and achieve combat results.

The ministry wants those methods studied and spread to other units, treating commanders' hard-won judgment as something to scale rather than leave in one brigade.

One goal: fewer Ukrainian losses, more Russian ones

Khmara framed the task in plain terms.

“We must adapt faster and give our warriors modern and effective tools,” he stressed, calling it the shared job of the Defense Ministry, the commander-in-chief and the General Staff.

A Ukrainian drone sergeant who volunteered for the infantry held a frontline position for six months, ArmyInform reported. He saved three soldiers in that time, and in one fight he stopped a Russian advance after contact with command was lost. The agency did not say where or when.

Senior Sergeant Dmytro, call sign Berezen “March”, spent 20 years as a television director before the invasion. In the 152nd Separate Jaeger Brigade, he served as chief sergeant of a drone platoon, worked with three crews, and trained soldiers. When the need arose to reinforce the infantry, he volunteered to switch. ArmyInform did not say what created that need.

“I didn’t come here to a sanatorium. I’m in my third year of fighting, I know what this is. It was my choice,” Dmytro said

Two wounded, one firefight

One comrade was hit by a mine and lost a leg. As Dmytro treated him, Russian troops began moving toward the position. Another wounded soldier was trying to reach them, and contact with command was lost. He killed two Russian soldiers and halted their advance, ArmyInform reported. He said he barely thought about himself, because a breakthrough could have hurt the soldiers holding positions behind him.

Not everyone could be saved. One wounded comrade was about 200 meters away. Dmytro heard his voice on the radio but could not leave his position mid-fight. Over the six months, he saved three soldiers. Two left the position with him, and the third was evacuated wounded. No money, he said, is worth blood.

A Ukrainian combat simulator can now be found and ordered in NATO's supply catalogs by a single code. L7 Simulators, whose trainers have prepared more than 500,000 Ukrainian troops, has had its entire lineup NATO-codified, with each device assigned a 13-digit NATO Stock Number, Defender Media reports.

L7's more than 50 trainers, from the Browning M2 to the Stinger to the NLAW, now carry those codes, and the company can codify new ones itself, opening the door to government procurement in Ukraine and across the alliance. It is another Ukrainian defense maker stepping toward NATO's standards and supply chain.

Every trainer gets a NATO number

A NATO Stock Number is a unique 13-digit code, a kind of military barcode for supplies, that lets defense logistics systems across the alliance identify, catalog, and purchase equipment. Every simulator in L7's catalog now has one, and the firm has also won the status to assign numbers to its future products directly, rather than starting the process over for each one.

The code identifies, not certifies

The company is careful about what the step does and does not mean. Codification is not a certification that the product meets NATO's technical standards, L7 stresses, but rather a mechanism for unambiguously identifying an item within the shared defense-logistics system.

The firm entered that system in December 2024, when its UNITS training platform, already cleared for use by Ukraine's Defense Ministry, received the first number.

Half a million have trained on them

L7's range runs to more than 50 types of trainers, tied together in a single ecosystem the company calls UNITS: fire-training systems, anti-tank and air-defense simulators, and trainers for unmanned aircraft, with models for the Stinger, NLAW, Carl Gustaf, RPG-7, and SPG-9 among them.

The simulators are used by the armed forces, the National Guard, and other security agencies, and more than 500,000 service members have trained on them, with over 70,000 of them free of charge at the company's own training center.