Inside Ukraine's secret counteroffensive in heavily fortified Donbas

Editor's note: Most of the Ukrainian soldiers and commanders interviewed are identified by their callsigns, in accordance with military protocols.

KHARKIV OBLAST — Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr had already narrowly survived crossing a mine-strewn field and a river in the crosshairs of Russian artillery when the swarm of first-person-view (FPV) drones began hunting him.

"If I'm honest, I was convinced they were going to kill us," the 37-year-old told the Kyiv Independent while chain-smoking cigarettes in the safety of his base in Kharkiv Oblast.

"I was already like, 'everyone goodbye, I love you all, everything is good,' but (the commanders were saying) on the radio, 'don't even think about it, everything will be fine.'"

Oleksandr was part of Operation Vivaldi, which is still ongoing and, until recently, was a top-secret counteroffensive in the Lyman sector in the northern part of Donetsk Oblast.

By pushing forward this spring, Ukrainian brigades under the Third Army Corps aimed to improve defensive positions in the area, which is critical to holding on to the remaining Ukrainian-held strongholds in the Donbas ahead of the winter, multiple commanders who took part said.

As well as liberating 277 square kilometers (107 square miles) of land and 16 villages as of Oct. 14, the operation proved something potentially even more important — that on today's drone-saturated and largely stalemated front line, it's still possible for Ukraine's infantry to advance in significant numbers.

But that does not mean it was easy.

Crossing the river

The first task was making it through a dense minefield. Survive that, and then there was the river to cross. Survive that, and there was a chance the village of Shandryholove could be liberated from Russian forces.

The first group of three soldiers that attempted the crossing barely made it, Battalion Commander Sergii Galchenko said. Two groups that followed were forced to turn back after setting off mines.

"The enemy couldn't figure out where we were."

Those that made it needed reinforcing as soon as possible, no easy task when the few wooden bridges crossing it were destroyed, and Russian drones and artillery monitored the area constantly.

The soldiers initially waded through the water, but used wood and logs to create a makeshift crossing, according to Galchenko.

"We had a very serious problem with logistics when it came to bringing in our own reinforcements," Galchenko, who goes by his callsign "Psycho," said at his command post not far from the front.

The best way to stay alive was to keep moving, not staying in one place long enough for Russian drones and artillery to zero in on their positions.

"The enemy couldn't figure out where we were," Galchenko said.

Galchenko's battalion was assigned to enter Shandryholove from the south and move northward, clearing the central street as they went.

Two tactics proved vital — using drones wherever possible, and using a blockade tactic whereby infantry sneaked behind Russian lines to isolate Moscow's troops from the rear and block their escape.

Taking Shandryholove

Taking Shandryholove — a village only 0.17 square kilometers (0.066 square miles) in size — took more than a month.

"The enemy heavily mined (the area), abnormally heavily, because it understood that it couldn't stop us any other way," Galchenko said.

Anti-personnel mines were everywhere and accounted for 80% of casualties, Galchenko said, without disclosing the total number of Ukrainian casualties during the operation.

To minimize the risk to Ukrainian lives while advancing, the most important thing for the commanders was to rely on drones as much as possible, striking Russian positions ahead of the advancing troops. Soldiers on the ground would then go in to look for survivors.

"We did everything we could to prevent the infantry from encountering the enemy there," Galchenko said.

The silent start

Units of the 66th Brigade advanced northward along the treeline toward heavily mined Shandryholove. The village had long been destroyed by years of heavy fighting in the area.

Oleksandr, who goes by his callsign "Marine," was in the first group of three soldiers to enter.

It was eerily quiet at first. The trio cleared a building as instructed and were approaching a church when they were spotted likely by a Russian FPV drone. A swarm soon followed.

For around four hours, the trio ran in zig-zags through the ruins of the village in a desperate attempt to avoid the drones above, while trying to stick to the concrete streets to avoid the mines below.

All three survived, but were not unscathed — one drone slammed into a door that Oleksandr had slammed shut behind him, peppering them all with shrapnel and dealing each a concussion.

The challenge in liberating Shandryholove was that Russian troops had prepared an extensive underground defensive network, primarily utilizing basements.

With the houses mostly destroyed in the village, it was difficult to assess from drone footage whether there was a basement under all the rubble, according to a company commander of the 125th Heavy Mechanized Brigade, who goes by his callsign "Ed." He estimated that there were about 50 houses in Shandryholove.

Instead of storming straight into Shandryholove, the majority of Ukraine's troops advanced along the treelines around the village to cut off the Russian troops inside, according to Ed. He said that his 125th Brigade moved roughly in parallel with other Ukrainian units, including the 66th and 60th mechanized brigades, with one advancing at a time and the others then playing catch-up.

What helped initially was that Russian troops in the village had been worn out by the cold weather when the offensive began, with some appearing to have died from exposure, Ed said.

"This really played in our favor," he added.

Beyond Shandryholove

Shandryholove was just one of many such tiny villages that needed to be liberated for the counteroffensive to succeed. In between them, Ukrainian forces advanced along treelines, continuously changing the timing and routes of assaults to keep Russia's troops guessing.

Sometimes the soldiers would move in the dead of night, wearing anti-thermal blankets, while on other days they would switch it up to the gray hour before sunrise or daytime, according to Ed.

The pace of advance varied day to day. Galchenko said that his soldiers from the 66th could advance two kilometers (1.2 miles) in a day, while sometimes it took four days to advance 200 meters.

The vanguard of the advance was made up of soldiers sent usually in pairs to conduct the blockade maneuver, sneaking behind enemy lines to block logistics and prevent Russian infantry from being reinforced or running away to the rear, according to "Judo," a battalion commander with the 60th Mechanized Brigade.

The dense spring foliage in the forest served as a double-edged sword. This helped the infantry hide from Russian drones, but also made it difficult for friendly drones to conduct reconnaissance of the area.

It was crucial for the infantry to serve as the "ears," letting their commanders know where they heard voices and movement.

Galchenko stressed that it was important to enter the Russian positions quietly so the Russian soldiers inside wouldn't have time to warn their higher-ups that the Ukrainians were advancing.

"They knew that the quieter we entered, the more chance that the enemy would not be able to pass on (the information) to his higher-ups."

"We knew that the quieter we entered, the greater the chance the enemy would not be able to pass on (the information) to his higher-ups that we are advancing," Galchenko said.

"Then we have more chance to advance without any (potentially dangerous) moments."

As the 66th and 125th brigades were working on liberating neighboring Shandryholove in spring, the 60th was tasked to move behind the smaller village of Derylove to the south to cut it off so another unit could retake it, Judo said. When trying to infiltrate, the objective was to establish a defensive line inside Russian-held territory by carefully sending in one group after another, he explained.

The commander told his unit that they should only open fire if they were fully certain that they could kill Russian soldiers, waiting until they got as close as five meters.

"The enemy was moving through what he believed was his territory, and our group let the enemy in and completely destroyed them," Judo said.

"Their bodies were then camouflaged, in order for the enemy not to detect our group by finding the bodies of its soldiers from drones."

The soldiers would try to penetrate five kilometers (3.1 miles) into the Russian rear. He admitted that 30 to 40 percent of the time the soldiers would still be spotted by drones, then had to shoot the drones down themselves or rely on their unit to deploy countermeasures remotely.

Despite the risks, Judo said the operation went successfully, with the unit taking "minimal" casualties. He believes that there would have been many more casualties if the positional war had continued and his unit had remained on the defensive.

Evacuating the wounded

Russian troops responded differently to the Ukrainian offensive each day. Russia could react with an extremely heavy barrage of artillery and drone strikes, and by scattering mines, but it could also suddenly go quiet for a couple of days, according to Ed.

Stepping on a mine was the most common cause of injury, followed by FPV strikes, and then gunshot wounds, Ed said.

"On one day there could be up to two mine blasts, and then three days without any," Ed said.

Evacuation proved to be difficult, and the mines that injured advancing troops were also a threat to those that tried to rescue them. They were difficult to spot in the long grass that had appeared with the arrival of spring.

Ed recalled one incident when a soldier was dragging a wounded comrade on a stretcher when it struck a mine, killing the wounded man.

Much has been made of the rapid advances in unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and their potential for evacuations on the battlefield, but during Operation Vivaldi, their slow speed made them prime targets for Russian drones, according to several commanders.

"If Russia sees a UGV, then I will say that there is a very high probability — 90% — that it will try to hit it," Galchenko said.

Galchenko recalled one incident when six Ukrainian soldiers were running across a field to assault a forested area when they were attacked with about 35 fiber-optic FPV drones, 12 fixed-wing Molniya drones, and heavy artillery over the course of two hours.

One appeared to have been killed outright and the other five were injured, one so severely that commanders monitoring the assault via a drone feed thought he was dead. When he regained consciousness, a UGV was sent in to bring him back without the need to send another soldier into an area already the target of so much Russian fire.

After struggling aboard, the wounded soldier made it around 1,500 meters away from the front line when a Russian drone struck, killing him.

Friendly drones

Away from the fighting on the ground, another critical aspect of Operation Vivaldi was Ukraine's middle-strike drone capability, which hammered Russian logistics about 200 kilometers (124 miles) away.

For the 21st Separate Unmanned Systems Regiment Kraken, the targets included ammunition depots, repair bases, and fuel storage sites in occupied territories of Luhansk Oblast, according to "Dolyna," one of the unit's high-ranking commanders.

"(Russian troops) were demoralized."

He linked the quieter days mentioned by Ed to successful strikes on Russian ammunition depots which, at least temporarily, deprived Russian artillery of shells.

Perhaps more crucially, these strikes helped deprive Russian infantry of the basic things they needed to survive — food, water, and ammunition.

"(Russian troops) were demoralized," Dolyna said at a middle-strike drone launch site in Kharkiv Oblast.

"It's hard to stay motivated when you are cold, hungry, and have nothing to keep you warm."

Operation Vivaldi

Operation Vivaldi had retaken 277 square kilometers (107 square miles) of territory, including 16 settlements, as of Oct. 14, according to the Third Army Corps. The unit claimed that Russian forces had suffered around 8,000 personnel losses, with over 250 soldiers captured by Ukraine as of this month.  The Kyiv Independent couldn't independently verify the claimed battlefield figures.

Ukraine's casualty ratio compared to Russia's has been one to seven, with the majority of Ukrainian losses being injuries while Russia faced more fatalities, Biletskyi claimed during a briefing, as cited by Ukrainian media Hromadske.

When announcing the end of the fourth stage of Operation Vivaldi, Biletskyi said, "four seasons of 'Vivaldi' are over, but the music continues," signaling that the counteroffensive would go on for now.

Commanders believe that Ukraine has already achieved its main objective of the counteroffensive and expect the pace of the counteroffensive to gradually slow, particularly with the arrival of winter.

"(Going on the offensive) is in our blood," Judo said.

"We don't have any intention of withdrawing or retreating. Our only goal is to fight for our territory."

A note from the author:

Hi, this is Asami, the author of this article. Thank you for reading it until the end. While reporting on an ongoing operation such as this one is difficult due to OPSEC concerns, what allows us, as local reporters, to tell their story in depth is gaining the commanders' and soldiers' trust. My goal has always been to shed light on the reality on the ground and to tell the stories as humanly as possible, because assaulting in the current drone-dominated phase of the war can be extremely deadly.

No matter how difficult the situation gets in Ukraine, we will continue to do our best to report from these front-line regions and provide a reliable window into the war. Please consider supporting our reporting, which is available without a paywall thanks to the support of our members.