After 4 months of the Lyman counter-attack, Ukraine 🇺🇦 3rd Army Corps managed to cut Russian 🇷🇺 salient north of…

After 4 months of the Lyman counter-attack, Ukraine 🇺🇦 3rd Army Corps managed to cut Russian 🇷🇺 salient north of Lyman and liberate more than 200 km2 This is one of the most important victory for Ukraine in 2026 which will delay the offensive on northern Donbas 🧵THREAD🧵1/20⬇️

The results of this offensive are significant since this is a very important area in eastern Ukraine. This saliant, was the base for an offensive on Lyman, which could have allowed further offensives to Izium and Sloviansk, threatened the northern supply road to Donbas. This area was already fought for in May 2022, September 2022 and May 2025, when Russia managed, after two years of very big losses to capture some critical Ukrainian positions.

To explain geography, you have 4 rivers. The Krasna river valley, from Svatove to Kreminna, that remained under Russian control. Further west is the Zherebets river. For a long time, Ukraine had control of many positions few kilometers east of it, while it could easily shoot the Russians from the high ground behind the river. It took Russia immense losses (remember all the assaults on Terny…) to take control of the eastern side of the Zherebets and it was very difficult to climb to the western side, since only few dams, in the open, allow passage. After the Zherebets is a high ground, which Russia captured last year and is a strategic location. Further west is the small Nitrius river, which was the next stop line for Ukraine and was barely crossed by infiltrators. The last one is the Oskil/Donets rivers further east or south, that can barely be crossed.

About OPSEC : Despite many claims, OPSEC (Operational Security) was very well observed, with barely any comment on the situation and no media attention. Why it matters? Because we knew that Russian units from there were weak and the 20th CAA had no reserve to throw in. Lying is being systemic (just observe the difference in reporting by pro-RU accounts that have contacts from this area and from the south…), so even if the information is coming to the battalion/regiment HQ, it is not sure that that information reaches the 20th CAA HQ and then Gerasimov. Otherwise, they would have sent some VDV or marine brigade/division that were elsewhere, the same way it happened in the south this year. Remember in Ivanivka, Radov and Rybar warned many times about the situation before It happened. I spent some time digging into their reports about Lyman and funnily, didn’t find anything that I had access at the same time, which is curious, because when something wrong is happening somewhere, they always react, because they are red by the high command. It’s not like nothing happened, but they just lacked information from the ground. It’s only recently that Divgen, Rybar, Radov and others started updating their maps.

What really happened based on my information : On May 22nd, a mechanized battalion of the 3rd Assault brigade supported by at least 2 other brigades (60th and 66th) from the 3rd Army Corps launched a large mechanized offensive with an important jamming of Russian drones. The assault began in the forests east of Izium and reached the village of Nove. In total, around 5 Ukrainians vehicles were hit during the assault, mainly by Fiber Optic drones (which shows that only those could fly) and many returned. That day, the Ukrainians managed to entrench in the fortified treeline east of Nove and started their Lyman counter-attack.

The week later, clearing operations started inside Nove, with the Ukrainians having a large manpower advantage due to their mechanized assault. While there was an assault on Nove from the east, the Ukrainians entrenched in 3 additional forests west of Nove, in order to widen the push. On June 1st, Nove was mostly liberated, while the offensive was continuing further south.

To illustrate this, on June 11th, I posted this “In the Lyman direction, after the May 22nd mechanized assault on Nove, the Ukrainians managed to consolidate their gains as seen in recent geolocations as well as satellite images”, illustrating that with a picture from June 8th satellite images showing more than 12 guided air-strikes (KABs).

Clément Molin@clement_molin · Jun 10, 2026

Map is from @Deepstate_UA Exemple here (some FABs) are visible compared with deepstate.

This was the first confirmation that the Ukrainians managed to secure all positions west of Nove and Lypove. The same day, I managed to confirm the Ukrainians took control of strategic treelines and forests south of Nove, more than 2 weeks after the initial assault and took control of Katerynivka.

Satellite images from June 19th showed a large number of airstrikes. Local Russian command requested again airstrikes against advancing Ukrainian infantry. In fact, the Ukrainians didn’t only push on the main axis near Nove, they also pushed in two directions further west, slowly reaching Zelena Dolyna. Remember airstrikes are only used against fully controlled Ukrainian area and not contested zone. At the end of June, I came back from vacation and updated my airstrike map.

In total, approximately 71 airstrikes could be found all around Nove in June, as it can be seen on this satellite image here. One geolocation was published on June 25th, it was the last one before geolocators stopped geolocating videos. It showed a Russian strike south of Nove…

At this time, I sent a temporary image to some contact showing what I believed was the extent of the operation at the time (map from @AndrewPerpetua) I didn't publish it for multiple reasons : my respect for OPSEC and for the sources.

During July, the OPSEC status was very powerful, with nearly no information filtering and no geolocations of the situation. In mid-July, the Ukrainians secured Zelena Dolyna, but more importantly continued to advance on the fortified treelines east. On July 27th, I published the 1st public analysis about the situation, showcasing the situation a month before.

Clément Molin@clement_molin · Jul 30, 2026

2 months ago, Ukraine 🇺🇦 launched a counter-attack north of Lyman, in order to relieve pressure on the city At the same time, Russian 🇷🇺 forces continue to infiltrate the city and attempt to isolate it from all sides. Very few informations filtered regarding Ukrainian counter-attack in the direction of Lyman. As the operation is still ongoing, I will outline the situation as it stood a little over a month ago, without going into much details. In late May, as Russian infiltrations into Lyman were increasing, the Azov 3rd Army Corps, a well-trained unit and one of the Ukrainian army's best, launched an attack to relieve pressure on the city. The offensive began with a mechanized assault that penetrated deep behind enemy lines; only a few fiber-optic drones that had escaped jamming managed to strike a handful of armored vehicles. Ukrainian troops, deployed behind Russian lines, were able to clear several villages, thereby expanding the "gray zone." Several geolocated videos show Ukrainian positions more than 5 km deep within the "red zone" on the DeepState map; notably, there has been a complete absence of footage showing a Russian presence in the area for over two months. Starting in late June, Russian aviation intervened to stabilize the situation, carrying out more than 200 airstrikes in the area during July, an indication of significant Ukrainian advances. The situation I am describing reflects the state of affairs in late June; operations have continued since then, with the most recent geolocated video from the sector dating to July 2 (both sides have published almost no footage, confirming what I previously said regarding OPSEC). Elsewhere, Russia continued to launch deep infiltrations, especially on both sides of the Siverki Donets river where they advanced. The town of Lyman, a Ukrainian stronghold remains firmly under Ukrainian control, with regularly Russian soldiers reaching the city center after a long walk. The main challenge for Ukraine is the difficulty to organize logistics, with strikes everyday on key roads and bridge over the Donets. Further north, Russian infiltrations continue in the forest areas near Pryshyb, with regular attempts to target drone and artillery teams. In total, more than 450 airstrikes fell on the yellow circles I added on my map, mainly in June. The situation in Lyman is not particularly good for Ukraine, but there is still hope the situation can improve if the 3rd Corps offensive succeeds, which would give Lyman additionnal months to survive and Sloviansk some air. Despite many people saying this is a secondary front, I disagree. This area is directly linked to the main Donbass front, with Lyman being the northern flank of remaining Ukrainian Donbass. Lyman has a similar role to Kostiantynivka or Dobropilla, as the entrance door of the fortified valley. Further update will come later, when informations will be more numerous.

During the month of July, 152 KAB airstrikes were conducted, half of them falling on fields and half on forests, treelines and villages. Interestingly, the first strikes hitting Nove and other villages confirmed the fact those were into Ukrainian hands for a long time. At the end of July, the Ukrainians opened further offensive axes on the balka (small valley) east of Nove (near Novomykhailivka) and started advancing south. At the same time, clearing operations were ongoing in villages on the western side of the bulge. It is worth noting I have and had very few information regarding operation in the western flank, so the map is approximate.

In August, fighting continued and reached further south, with the first rumours of encirclements of the Russian edge north of Lyman. In a month, around 200 airstrikes have been conducted on a large area, with a high concentration on Ukrainian infiltration routes. The Ukrainians reached around August 15th the northern edge of Kolodiazi village (3km from there). Then, they continued to push on the flanks to clean Russian presence, as some Russian forces got trapped. Interestingly, during all this period, no Russian mapper ever talked about the difficult situation of the Russian grouping, but all of them updated their maps (Divgen, Radov, Rybar…), showing Nove as contested...

On August 24th, Ukraine launched a second successful mechanized assault, which was wrongly interpreted. It seems it was not aimed at pushing further south, but east, to progress between Katerynivka and Novoliubivka. Here is a map of the situation from a few days ago (OPSEC is still partly ongoing so it's not the current one). Ukraine cut the bulge, but still need to clear Russian presence west of Kolodiazi. There is no way Russian forces that got stuck west retreated and there is 0 proof of Ukrainian control other the farmlands that I kept in grey. Offensive actions continue on the east.

I've seen many maps of the situation, which were missing many things, so I wanted to make something +/- chronological, with the information I had collected from Open Source. Claims that a large Russian grouping got encircle are wrong, but I believe a certain number of soldiers are cut off and it was impossible to retreat due to Ukrainian drone monitoring. Russia suffered from lies (if you don't believe me, remember Putin stated Svihatohirsk was liberated (it is 25km from the frontline) and no reinforcement was brought in. The operation didn't happen in one day and is still ongoing, most of the information I'm giving here are outdated of at least a week.

The main offensive axis comes from Nove and goes all the way south. We know there are two main support axes, one east and on west. The one east is recent and there are very few proofs, we just know that they nearly reached the Zherebet river. The one west is known, but there is a large area where there may still be Russian soldiers. Most of the villages westwards have been cleared but not the treelines. Units involved include 66th and 60th mecanized, as well as an unknown bat of the 3rd AB and probably some other smaller units (I'm not very good at orbat mapping). Map from few weeks ago :

About the information space : There is only one reason barely any information was published about this offensive : geolocators for @UkraineDailyUpd (@moklasen, @giK1893, @ZoamSc2, @Bielitzling, @RoadtoMars9...) chose not to update their map and publish geolocations. I know for sure they have plenty of geolocations from Russian videos that they didn't publish, this shows how small the information space is. If they don't publish anything, barely anyone else is doing any work.

Finally, here is my airstrike map : 🟠= June 🔴= July ⚪️= August 🟡= September

Thank you all for following this long thread, covering the information that are not part of the current OPSEC regime. This is the result of months of coverage of this Ukrainian offensive, which is still ongoing. 20/20