ANALYSIS: 240 km² recaptured north of Lyman — the counteroffensive that went unreported for three months

An Invisible Operation

May 22, in Nove

On May 22, 2026, a mechanized battalion from the Ukrainian 3rd Assault Brigade attacked Russian positions around the village of Nove, about 15 kilometers north of Lyman, in the Donetsk Oblast. Two other brigades provide support: the 60th and 66th Mechanized Brigades, temporarily attached to the 3rd Army Corps for the operation. On that day, Russian drones are heavily jammed; only fiber-optic-equipped drones are still able to fly, and it is these that strike the five Ukrainian vehicles lost in the assault.

Then, for three months, nothing. No statement from the Ukrainian General Staff. No reports from analysts. Nothing from the Russian side either. The first bits of information only began to surface at the end of August, and the full picture only became public this week.

Ukraine’s most significant operation of the year unfolded in near-total silence, while the entire world looked the other way.

What has been reported

Estimates vary depending on the cartographer, and they should be reported as they are. Cartographer Clément Molin estimates the recaptured territory at over 200 km². The AKM Mapping account puts it at 151 km². Konrad Muzyka, of Rochan Consulting, estimates it at around 240 km². The reasonable range is therefore 150 to 240 square kilometers.

To put this into perspective: it is, at the very least, equivalent to the area of the island of Montreal, recaptured from an adversary that, on paper, holds an advantage in manpower and firepower throughout the Donetsk region.

In a war where gains are measured in hundreds of meters, two hundred forty square kilometers is no small matter.

The Trap of the Salient

Eighteen months of Russian preparations wiped out

To understand the significance of this development, one must look at what the Russians were trying to build. The 20th Combined Arms Army held a salient north of Lyman covering approximately 100 km², wedged between the Nitrius and Jerebets rivers. This salient was intended to serve as a launching pad for an offensive on Lyman, then toward Izium and Sloviansk, with the aim of threatening the northern supply route to the Donbas.

It took Russian forces eighteen months to create the conditions for this push. According to cartographer Vitaly, they have just lost the equivalent of a year and a half of progress. Sloviansk and Kramatorsk are the last two major cities still under free control in the Donetsk Oblast: the planned siege from the north will not take place under the conditions originally envisaged.

Eighteen months to build the road to Sloviansk. Three months to lose it again.

Too far, too fast

The mechanism behind the Russian defeat is almost textbook. The 20th Combined Arms Army advanced too deep into a narrow pocket, particularly exposed at its western end, where it had crossed the Nitrius River. The Ukrainians, entrenched on favorable terrain, patiently chipped away at its supply lines while waiting for the right moment to counterattack.

Vitaly describes a position that had become politically and institutionally impossible for the Russian command to abandon, yet was never wide enough to be militarily tenable. Each new unit sent to consolidate it served only to reinforce a line that existed more on paper than on the ground. The same analyst sums up the situation in a single phrase: it wasn’t the armored vehicles that decided the outcome; they appeared because the conditions that had made their movement impossible had already disappeared.

The Russians were not driven out of a salient. They were surrounded.

Silence as a Weapon

Even Russian war correspondents saw nothing

This is the most unusual aspect of this story, and the one that deserves the attention of a Western reader. What made the trap work was that no one spoke of it. The Ukrainian General Staff remained silent. Pro-Ukrainian analysts, who normally map out every advance within hours, remained silent until the end of August. So did the Russians.

Observer Andrew Perpetua, who has tracked other covert Ukrainian operations around Kupiansk and in southern Donetsk, considers this one to have been even better concealed: even the best-informed Russian correspondents seemed unaware of it. He attributes this secrecy to a form of collective action by the open-source intelligence community, which chose not to discuss it.

About a hundred volunteer analysts spread across three continents voluntarily kept quiet for three months. This is operational discipline exercised by civilians.

Sviatohirsk, or the Measure of a Lie

An example is worth more than a demonstration. Vladimir Putin recently announced the capture of Sviatohirsk. On September 7, the commander of the 3rd Army Corps, Brigadier General Andrii Biletsky, was walking through the city in front of a camera.

Perpetua draws a rule of interpretation from this: Russian lies are at their thickest precisely where Russian forces are retreating. On Russian military channels, the tone is also beginning to shift. Rybar, one of the most-followed commentators, now speaks of “problems” near Lyman and concedes that Russian forces do not even control the airspace immediately along the front line.

When a head of state announces a conquest and an enemy general is walking around there three days later, it’s no longer a matter of propaganda. It’s an intelligence failure.

What analysts can’t agree on

A major victory, or a success with no strategic impact?

Honesty demands that we report the disagreement, because it is clear-cut. Clément Molin sees this as one of Ukraine’s most significant victories of 2026, one that will delay the offensive on northern Donbas. The observer Thorkill, who has followed the sector from start to finish, describes the operation as a success at the operational level and considers it more significant than the gains made by the 7th Rapid Reaction Corps near Velyka Novossilka in July—but concludes, in the same article, that it will not change Ukraine’s situation on the front that matters most right now: the Kramatorsk metropolitan area.

Thorkill is also the most cautious regarding the timeline: he dates the decisive breakthrough to August 17 and 18, and points out that during July and early August, the 3rd Corps’ attacks were repelled by the Russian 144th Motorized Rifle Division. He acknowledges that he does not know what tipped the balance, and notes that sources differ: some mention a Russian withdrawal, others deny it, and still others speak of units that were partially cut off. What he can confirm through satellite imagery is the recapture of Serednie and Zelena Dolyna.

An analyst who clearly states what he does not know is worth ten analysts who claim to explain everything.

The operation is not over

The 3rd Army Corps cut off the salient about three weeks ago, reaching the northern edge of Kolodiazi and trapping an unknown number of Russian soldiers between the Ukrainian vanguard and the former bridgehead. Most of those surrounded appear to have escaped. Molin warns that Russian soldiers likely remain in a vast area: the villages to the west have been cleared, but not the tree lines.

A second mechanized attack was launched on August 24. However, the 3rd Corps is likely shifting from attack to consolidation, facing the thankless task of clearing a gray zone that was a Russian salient four months ago.

Fighting continues north of Lyman. But for now, it is proceeding on Ukraine’s terms.

By Maxime Marquette, Columnist September 12, 2026

Columnist’s Transparency Box

Editorial Stance

I am not a journalist, but a columnist and analyst. My job is to dissect geopolitical and strategic dynamics and offer a critical interpretation of events. I do not claim to possess the dispassionate objectivity of news reporting; I claim analytical clarity. The author takes an editorial stance in support of the Ukrainian defense; this stance does not alter the presentation of data or the reporting of disagreements among analysts.

Methodology and Sources

This article draws on fieldwork by military journalist David Axe for Euromaidan Press, as well as on publications by open-source cartographers and analysts he cites: Clément Molin, Thorkill, Vitaly, Andrew Perpetua, the AKM Mapping account, and Konrad Muzyka of Rochan Consulting.

None of this data has been confirmed by an official source from either side of the conflict. The Ukrainian General Staff has not published anything regarding this operation; the Russian Ministry of Defense denies most of it. Estimates of the recaptured territory range from 151 to 240 km² depending on the methodology used, and this range is reported in full rather than reduced to a single figure. The recaptures of Serednie and Zelena Dolyna are the only ones confirmed by satellite imagery.

Nature of the Analysis

There is genuine disagreement among analysts regarding the strategic significance of the operation, and this is reported as such: this article does not take a position between Molin’s interpretation—who views it as a major victory—and Thorkill’s—who considers it to have had no effect on the Kramatorsk axis. The comparison of area to the island of Montreal is an approximate equivalence provided for illustrative purposes.

No government, political party, or organization commissioned, paid for, proofread, or approved this text.

ANALYSIS: 240 km² recaptured north of Lyman — the counteroffensive that went unreported for three months