Ukrainian forces are advancing east of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and even Russian milbloggers now acknowledge it, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on 8 October. The gains may follow months of groundwork like the one that preceded Operation Vivaldi near Lyman, which Ukraine says returned 176 km² to its control. Russian commentators are already doubting that Moscow can reach the two cities.

Russia's years-long push on the Fortress Belt, the chain of cities anchoring Ukraine's defense in Donetsk Oblast, has been stalling since Vivaldi began. Unable to take those cities, Russia keeps hitting them from the air. On 8 October, a Russian bomb killed 30 people on two buses in Kramatorsk.

Across the Siverskyi Donets

Russian milbloggers said Ukrainian forces liberated Ozerne and advanced east of Pyskunivka toward Kryva Luka, ISW reported. They also acknowledged that Ukrainian troops drove Russian forces out of Pyskunivka. Ukrainians are now counterattacking toward Kryva Luka from the west and northwest, from across the river.

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ISW called the repeated Russian claims of a river crossing notable, because the Siverskyi Donets is a significant natural obstacle. Kryva Luka is a dominant height just south of the river. From there, Ukraine could launch further counterattacks. Ukrainian forces appear to have pushed Russian troops off both banks in this area, ISW assessed.

The heights Russia wanted

After Vivaldi cleared ground near Lyman in September, Russia shifted its push south toward Mykolaivka and Sloviansk. Russian forces likely see Mykolaivka, just east of Sloviansk, as a primary objective, ISW said. Its heights would favor an offensive on the city. Ukrainian pushes northeast and southeast of the town now deny Russia that terrain.

East of Kramatorsk, milbloggers claimed Ukrainians liberated Malynivka and advanced between Fedorivka Druha and Holubivka. They also reported gains into southern Minkivka and near Fedorivka. The lines remain tangled. Geolocated footage shows Ukrainian forces striking a Russian position in central Tykhonivka after what ISW assesses was a Russian infiltration.

ISW said the counterattacks may point to a broader Ukrainian goal: pushing Russian forces east, away from the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk area and toward the Siverskyi Donets–Donbas Canal.

The Vivaldi playbook

The counterattacks have run for weeks. On 29 September, Ukrainian military observer Kostiantyn Mashovets reported them in the same areas, saying Russia's 3rd Combined Arms Army had failed to make significant gains. ISW assesses that the attacks build on months of shaping meant to wear down Russia's offensive capacity.

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Before Vivaldi, Ukrainian forces targeted Russian drone operators, gaining drone superiority before the counteroffensive. They used the same approach ahead of their Oleksandrivka counterattacks in early 2026.

Moscow appears to see the pattern. A Ukrainian military official said on 7 October that Russia is moving drone units and Spetsnaz from quieter sectors to the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk direction. Ukraine also reorganized its command in and around Donetsk Oblast in early September, which may be blunting Russian attacks from the east, ISW said.

"Distant" and "doomed"

One Russian milblogger called an advance toward the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk area a "distant" prospect, ISW reported. A Russian offensive from Siversk toward Sloviansk may be "doomed" to failure or heavy losses unless Russia retakes the forests south of Lyman, he said.

The counterattacks east of the two cities appear to support Vivaldi, ISW assessed. Together with Russia's defeat north of the river, they could disrupt Russia's offensive toward Sloviansk from the east entirely.

If Ukraine holds Kryva Luka and keeps Russia off the Mykolaivka heights, Moscow's pincer on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk loses the ground it was built on.

Small groups of Russian infantry could slip into regional capital Zaporizhzhia this winter, a frontline commander warned in a mid-September interview with Dnipro TV, in a debate later compiled by Radio Svoboda. His forecast drew quick pushback from a military analyst, who called it far more categorical than the situation warrants. At the center of the dispute lies the drained Kakhovka Reservoir, whose dry bed Russia now uses for cover.

Dense drone surveillance has made large mechanized assaults costly, pushing Russian commanders toward small groups that probe for gaps. That shift turns unwatched terrain — here, the drained reservoir bed—into the seams they test.

Solitary groups, not massed forces

Dmytro Filatov, callsign Perun, commands the 1st Separate Assault Regiment named after Dmytro Kotsiubailo. The danger will come not as a massed assault but as infiltration, he said. He expects solitary infantry groups to reach and enter Zaporizhzhia over the winter. He pointed to the Stepnohirsk axis and the dense buildings along the Dnipro shore. Fog and rain raise pressure across the whole front, and Russian troops have long fought well in winter, he said.

A city on the front's edge

Zaporizhzhia is a regional capital and industrial center in southeastern Ukraine, with more than 700,000 residents before the full-scale invasion. The city sits about 25 km from the nearest active front, around Stepnohirsk to the south—unusually close for a regional capital of its size. Russian missiles, drones, and glide bombs hit the city daily. It has held since 2022, and Russia has not taken a Ukrainian regional capital since the war's first months.

The dead reservoir as cover

Russia blew up the Kakhovka dam in June 2023 and drained the reservoir behind it. Reeds now stand several meters high across the dry basin, giving foot soldiers cover to move unseen. Ukraine's Southern Defense Forces reported in November 2025 that Russian groups use it to press into the Ukrainian flank.

Russian troops increasingly use the bed to infiltrate and haul supplies, said Kostiantyn Mashovets of the Information Resistance group. One of their assault groups pushed as far as Malokaterynivka before Ukrainian forces blocked it, he wrote. Ukrainian troops hold northern Plavni, including the railway station and part of the E-105 highway, Mashovets added. The Institute for the Study of War pointed to the same route in its 26 September assessment, citing Ukrainian military observers.

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An analyst is not convinced

Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military-political expert and Information Resistance coordinator, rates the threat far lower. He wrote that the warning "sounded far more categorical than it should have." Stepnohirsk, about 25 km south of Zaporizhzhia, is the closest active fighting to the city. Russia has tried for years to take the town but now controls only its 3rd microdistrict and southern Plavni.

Infiltration becomes possible only if Russia takes the whole foothold and reaches the north bank of the Konka river. That will not happen by the end of 2026, and no ground push on the city looks possible, he said. The main danger stays daily Russian strikes on the city, not a ground advance, he added.

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.

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.