(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([“_mgc.load”])})(window,”_mgq”);
- Lyman holds, despite reports to the contrary
- Russian troops have planted a few flags across the eastern city, but that doesn’t mean they stayed
- Overall, Russian advances are way down compared to this time last year
Don’t believe Russian propaganda. There’s no reason to believe Russian forces are about to capture the city of Lyman, which anchors Ukrainian defenses 15 km north of Sloviansk, one of the last two big free cities in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.
The Russians are trying to march on Sloviansk and neighboring Kramatorsk from two directions: the north and the south. To approach from the north, they have to get around or through Lyman. To approach from the south, they must travel 20 km along a mined, drone-patrolled road threading from the ruins of Kostiantynivka toward Kramatorsk.
The Russians have enjoyed some recent success in the south. After a long aerial bombardment and ground siege, they recently infiltrated Kostiantynivka, forcing the city’s garrison to pull back in order to avoid encirclement.
But the Russians are no closer to capturing Lyman, despite months of effort. They’ve been trying to bypass the city to the north, but Ukrainian counterattacks keep blunting and rolling back their advances. Small teams of Russian infantry have fared no better while trying to infiltrate Lyman. They’ve only succeeded in creating the impression of progress.
Don’t buy the impression. Russian infiltrators sneaking into Lyman from a small Russian foothold in the city’s eastern outskirts haven’t yet succeeded in dislodging Ukrainian troops in most of Lyman. Reports of new Russian lodgements, and Ukrainian counterattacks aimed at clearing out those lodgements, are inaccurate.
Flag ops
Yes, some small teams of Russian infantry have managed to plant a few flags in Lyman recently. But that doesn’t mean the flag-planters stayed, or even survived. “Russia never consolidated in any of these areas,” AMK Mapping noted.
Misreading the Russian flag operations, some observers invented imaginary Ukrainian operations to explain why the overall pattern of confirmable Ukrainian versus Russian presence in Lyman didn’t change even as a few Russian flags briefly popped up.
“Many accounts are inventing a Ukrainian counterattack/clearing operation in Lyman to cover their previous lies/mistakes,” mapper Clément Molin explained. “Russian forces never took control of any part of Lyman city and there was no counterattack.”
After eight months, Kostiantynivka is falling. Why some Ukrainian commanders would rather fight the open fields behind it
“The situation has remained the same for weeks, with a very small part of the eastern neighborhoods used for infiltrations,” Molin added. “Infiltrations continue all around the city … which is not a proof of control.”
Lyman holds. If anything, the Ukrainian hold on the city is stabilizing as Ukrainian counterattacks north of Lyman squeeze a Russian salient jutting a few kilometers to the west. If the Russians can’t eject Lyman’s defenders by infiltrating the city, they could partially surround it along its outskirts, putting pressure on the garrison’s supply lines and eventually compelling them to retreat.
But not if the attempted encirclement keeps failing.
The combination of Russian encirclement and infiltration led to the belated collapse of Ukrainian defenses in Kostiantynivka, but the same Russian strategy is failing in Lyman. For now. It’s not that the strategy isn’t a sound one, all things considered. But overall battlefield conditions have changed in ways that came too late to save Kostiantynivka, but may yet save Lyman.
Namely, Ukrainian forces have radically escalated their drone strikes across the Russian logistical zone stretching 200 km behind the gray zone. New AI-assisted fixed-wing drones and tiny first-person-view quadcopter drones wearing range-extending wings have pummeled Russian supply lines with growing intensity since this spring, knocking out hundreds of Russian cargo trucks and sapping the strength of front-line regiments and brigades before they can even attempt an infiltration or encirclement.
It’s not for no reason that, even taking into account Russian advances through the ruins of Kostiantynivka, the overall pace of Russian gains is down to just 30 square km this month. That’s around 10% of the territory Russian troops captured in June 2025.
The Russians are slowing down almost everywhere but Kostiantynivka. That includes Lyman, where recent reports of Russian gains were an illusion.
(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([“_mgc.load”])})(window,”_mgq”);
Source link
