For months, the Third Army Corps has pushed along the Lyman axis. Russian units have retreated from at least 75 km². Vivaldi is underway.
The Kremlin wanted to bypass Ukraine’s fortress belt in western Donbas. Instead, Russian milbloggers write that the battle for Donbas may have been extended by up to a year. Their mathnot a guarantee.
David Kirichenko points to a Russian habit: commanders report more success than they have. On the map in Moscow, Lyman looked under control. Reinforcements never came. Ukraine seized the initiative.
Medium‑range fire into the back. Then boots and armor into the gap. Same lesson as Kursk 2024, he says: when conditions are right, mechanized assault and heavy armor aren’t museum pieces.
It’s not the whole front turning. It’s a bridgehead meant to eat Sloviansk — and instead gets eaten itself.
The lie upward is cheap. It costs divisions.
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