For Putin, Lyman was no ordinary town. It was both a symbol and a bridge head.

Retaking this territory lost in 2022 was a valuable political prize for the Kremlin.

Without Lyman, massing a regular army from the north against Ukraine’s last major stronghold, Sloviansk was almost impossible.

That is exactly why this small railway town in the north of the Daetsk region had been one of Russia’s most ambitious targets for months.

Russia could not risk taking the city headon. Instead, they opted to outflank it from the north.

By massing thousands of troops spearheaded by the 20th Army’s 144th motorized rifle division west of the Jerobets River, they formed an enveloping salient north of Lyman.

The plan was simple, to slowly suffocate the city without a direct fight. But in the final days of August 2026, this plan was suddenly turned on its head because Ukraine’s Third Army Corps had been quietly executing a completely different plan for months.

This maneuver caught the Russian military entirely offguard. Ukrainian troops advanced toward the village of Kadazi from both the north and the south, beginning to form a pinsir movement around the Russian salient.

The result was a picture on the front line that no one expected. The Russian army found itself facing the threat of being cut off within the very salient they had built to suffocate Lyman.

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Now, let’s jump right back into the video. To better understand this striking Ukrainian success in the Lyman direction, we first need to look at how this frontline salient was formed.

In early 2025, Russian forces crossed the Jerabets River, established a small bridge head on the western bank, and expanded it step by step over the following months.

The objective was clear. Rather than taking Lyman via a frontal assault, they aimed to bypass and encircle it from the north.

This task was largely undertaken by Russian units, primarily the 144th and third divisions of the 20th Army.

In some sectors, the Russians possessed a manpower advantage of up to 10 to1 over Ukraine.

However, this superiority was predominantly utilized through infantry wave attacks. Armored vehicles were becoming an increasingly rare sight as Ukrainian drone and artillery fire made it nearly impossible to keep heavy armor operational on the battlefield.

The logic behind the plan was straightforward. If the salient expanded enough, Lyman’s northern flank would collapse, opening the road to Slovian, that critical fortress just 20 km away.

But salients are dangerous for both sides. The deeper an army pushes into enemy lines, the more exposed its flanks become.

As Russia pushed deeper around Lyman, they were unknowingly setting their own trap. And Ukraine was waiting precisely for these exposed flanks.

Ukraine’s response was not a loud, flashy offensive, but a patient, silent operation unfolding over months.

In April 2026, a counteroffensive began against the Russian salient north of Lyman. Spearheading this operation was Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, which was responsible for the defense of the sector.

The most remarkable aspect of the operation was its extraordinary secrecy. Starting in May, the third corps launched assaults around the Russian-held village of November personnel carriers, strikers, BTR4s, and heavy bomber drones.

Yet, independent sources could geollocate almost none of these attacks. As analyst Clement Molen pointed out, while the Ukrainians maintain strict operational security, the Russians refrained from publishing footage of the areas they were retreating from.

With both sides keeping quiet, this silent advance on the front line remained in the shadows for months.

This quiet pressure bore its first major fruit in early July. Following months of battling the 144th motorized rifle division, Ukrainian forces successfully placed the village of Novelement, subsequently clearing it.

This was not just the recapture of a village. It was a crack opening up at the most vulnerable point of the Russian salient.

The most critical development, however, occurred within the strategy itself. The Ukrainian command realized that the Russian bridge head now become strategically vulnerable and shifted their plan.

The objective was no longer just to hold the Russians, but to completely cut off the salient.

Elite units of the third corps formed the backbone of this offensive, primarily the third assault brigade and the 60th mechanized brigade with support from the 66th mechanized brigade.

Following months of grueling attritional warfare, these units slowly began forging the two arms of a pinser around the salient.

By the final days of August 2026, this pinser, meticulously constructed over months, became visible.

Ukrainian forces began advancing simultaneously from both the north and south toward the village of Kodiazi in the center of the Russian salient.

According to Polish analyst Thorill, the Third Army Corps was very close to eliminating the 20th Army’s bridge head on the western bank of the Jerobets River.

The tactical picture on the ground showed the formation of two distinct pincers. In the western sector of the salient, Ukrainian assault groups positioned themselves south of the critical village of Shandre Halov and engaged in fierce combat for its control while other units approached the same village from the north.

This dual pressure forced the Russian command into a partial withdrawal. Ukraine reclaimed vacated positions around Yorova, Alexandrivka, Karpivka, and Korovi Yar.

Further east, Ukrainian troops captured tactical heights south of NOV, driving deeper toward the outskirts of Kodiazi.

Distances on the ground illustrated just how much the Pinsir had tightened in the eastern part of the salient.

According to map assessments, the narrowest gap between the two Ukrainian Pinsir arms had shrunk to approximately 6 km, leaving only a narrowing corridor between the forward assault groups.

If this corridor were to close completely, the Russian bridge head west of the Jervetses would be severed, placing at least two Russian regiments inside under a loose encirclement.

The most striking confirmation of this development came from an unexpected source. Even Russian military bloggers who had supported Putin’s frontline narrative for months were forced to admit on their maps that Ukraine was encircling a Russian force north of Leman.

The fact that Assad’s own propaganda channels confessed to this highlighted the gravity of the situation on the ground.

Still, caution is necessary here. This area is not a front line separated by sharp demarcations.

It is a vast gray zone of intertwined contesting positions. A complete encirclement has not yet materialized, and Russian troops can still utilize escape routes.

But the trajectory was clear. The salient built to suffocate Leman was now facing the threat of suffocation itself.

So, how did Ukraine pull off an armored maneuver in open terrain? The answer lies not in a single weapon, but in a mutually reinforcing system.

According to some sources, Ukraine advanced using Cobra 2 mresistant ambush protected MRAP vehicles and their domestically produced BTR4E armored personnel carriers.

Standard Russian FPV drones were rendered largely ineffective by Ukraine’s dense electronic warfare umbrella. This forced Russian operators to switch to fiber optic drones, which take longer to prep and are in shorter supply.

This tactical picture served as a striking counter example to the thesis that armored maneuver warfare is dead.

What worked was not a single weapon, but a synergy of layers. Electronic warfare units created a localized protective bubble to jam Russian drones while armored vehicles pushed forward in swift raids to dismount infantry directly onto the objective.

Through this method, Ukraine captured the high ground, threatening Russian supply lines over the Jerabets.

The most fascinating detail of this battle was why the Russians were increasingly resorting to fiber optic drones.

According to analyst Kamalt Molen’s assessment, this was a clear signal that Ukrainian electronic warfare was jamming conventional radiocontrolled drones in that sector.

Fiber optic drones, which are immune to jamming but suffer from restricted range, limited maneuverability, and the risk of their spooling cables snapping, were a workaround.

Russia’s reliance on them proved Ukraine’s electronic supremacy. The Lyman front line was now littered with kilometers of optical fiber cable.

However, the real challenge of such raids began not during the assault, but in its aftermath.

Dropping infantry into an area is not enough. You must constantly supply those troops with ammunition, water, and food.

If this logistics chain fails, the advancing units quickly end up stranded and depleted, just as Russian infiltration groups often did.

This was Ukraine’s true edge in Lyman. They solved the problem of sustaining captured positions far better than their adversary.

This development north of Lyman carries an operational significance extending far beyond a few square kilometers on the ground because it directly disrupts the tempo of Putin’s entire master plan for the dawnbos.

The most concrete result was the shifting vector of pressure on Slovansk. When Russia launched its 2026 spring summer offensive, its primary choice was to drive down on Slovansk from the northeast via lemon.

But when this push stalled out, the Russian command was forced to alter its plans.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, ISW, Russia is now attempting to approach the city from the east in the direction of Mikolai because the Severki Donets River and its network of canals had turned the northern route into a natural moat for Ukraine.

This change in access came at a serious cost for Putin. Bogged down in Le Man, Russia was forced to reallocate resources to other fronts, specifically toward Costantenevka and Pocrosk.

In other words, Ukraine’s defense of Le Man became a persistent drag, forcing the Russian military into constant redeployments.

Concentrating force on one front meant easing the pressure on another. The second consequence was on the level of morale and prestige.

Facing the threat of encirclement within a salient of their own making was a heavy reputational blow to the Russian command.

For an army that had been pushing the narrative that Leman is practically taken for months, facing the risk of losing their own bridge head directly undermined the motivation of the soldiers on the ground.

The third factor was the timeline. Prudin aimed to capture the entirety of the Donbos by a specific date and the first stepping stone toward that goal was lean.

But with the plan stumbling at the very first step, the entire timetable was pushed back.

For Ukraine, this had an additional byproduct, proving its ability to conduct maneuver warfare, even on a limited scale, carved out crucial diplomatic breathing room for Kiev in Western debates over military aid.

The picture in the man is only a fraction of a broader systemic issue facing the Russian military.

The very same attrition is visible in a much starker form toward Picrosk, one of the most intense sectors of the front line.

The most striking example of this is Russia’s once proud 76th Guards Air Assault Division.

Until recently, this Piscavbas based unit was one of the few formations Moscow could genuinely call elite.

But according to war correspondents and analysts, after months of fruitless assaults, the division had sustained heavy casualties, bleeding its combat power at an unsustainable rate.

The degradation of this division is emblematic not just of a single unit, but of a downward spiral across the entire Russian military.

The details shared by analyst David Axe are jarring. Once equipped with modern T72 and T90 tanks, the 76th Division, unable to replace its losses, regressed first to 70-year-old T-55 tanks and eventually to electric scooters and saunoff civilian cars.

This was the direct consequence of the Russian army losing over 17,000 armored vehicles since 2022.

Still, we must remain balanced here. Despite this extreme wear and tear, rather than pulling the division off the line to reconstitute, Russia stubbornly continues to throw it forward.

The tactical result on the ground has been meager progress in exchange for a colossal effort.

Russia continuously pushes small infantry groups forward to grind down Ukrainian defenses. But this strategy often limits average daily advances in the sector to just a few dozen meters.

Massive manpower is being expended for the sake of gains measured in meters. Picrovk stands as the clearest proof that even Russia’s elite forces cannot reverse this unsustainable equation.

Leman and Picrovk are just two windows into the war. During these same days, other developments complementing Ukraine’s broader strategy were taking place in different sectors of the front and deep in the Russian rear.

In the east toward Costantenevka, Russia maintained its pressure. But here too, the reality diverged from the Kremlin’s narrative.

Russian forces attempted to penetrate the city’s outskirts with small infiltration teams, expanding the gray zone.

Yet they failed to push their main force in and consolidate control. Ukraine maintained its presence in the northnorthwest of the city and successfully repelled multiple incursions.

Down south in the Huya pole direction, Ukraine executed a notable strike. Ukrainian forces targeted a rare Russian satellite communication terminal developed as a counterpart to Starlink.

Rather than aiming for a few meters of territorial gain, this was a calculated move to degrade the enemy’s communication and command and control capabilities.

But Ukraine’s true strategic investment lay far beyond the front line. Deep strikes. Throughout August, Ukraine systematically targeted the energy and logistics infrastructure feeding the Russian war machine.

On the night of August 24th to 25th, the Aphipsky oil refinery in the Kranadar region was struck for the fifth time this year, triggering a massive fire.

A gas processing facility in Astroan was also hit in the same wave. Perhaps the most audacious example of this campaign occurred on August 26th.

Ukrainian missiles struck an underground parking garage in occupied Daesk, which was assessed to be operating as a Russian military command post.

According to OSENT analysts, six missiles found their mark and the target may have been the headquarters of Russia’s 51st Combined Arms Army.

Behind all these strikes lies a singular operational logic. According to analysts, Ukraine’s overarching goal is to choke the primary logistics arteries feeding the Russian grouping in Donetsk and Luhansk, specifically the M4 highway corridor connecting Moscow to Rostov.

Because starving an attacking army of its fuel yields a much higher strategic return than merely fighting over a few frontline villages.

Cutting off hundreds of soldiers is a tactical success. But securing lasting stability requires pushing Russia far back from the Jerabets beyond the Zurich line.

Otherwise, infiltrations can simply happen again. Secondly, across the broader front line, Russia’s slow but persistent grinding continues.

On the eastern axis, the third combined arms army is advancing step by step. According to one analyst, 21 square kilmters of territory fell under Russian control in this sector during the third week of August alone.

Forward Russian positions are now a mere 12 to 13 km from Slovian and Kromatursk.

Most importantly, the fundamental resource balance remains unchanged. Russia still possesses a massive manpower reserve.

According to Zilinski, the Kremlin is preparing for a new mobilization wave of around 300,000 personnel following the Duma elections in midepptember.

Such a reinforcement could resurrect the threat of eventually crushing Ukraine’s fortress belt through sheer attrition.

Therefore, Ukraine’s selective offensives are in essence a strategy to buy time rather than an outright victory stroke.

In short, the battle for Leman is part of a much larger equation than the fate of a single town.

And this equation relies on two decisive variables, manpower and time. On the manpower front, Russia is quietly conscripting forces without an open declaration.

According to data compiled by human rights organizations and independent sources, complaints of coerced contracts, detentions, and intimidation have surged across at least 17 regions in recent weeks.

Areas like Penza and Amsk are frequently making headlines. On the Ukrainian side, they are attempting to solve the equation through an overhaul of the command structure.

Following the Fedorov Cerski tensions, General Mkylo Draachi was appointed commander-in-chief, while Yehenni Kamar, hailing from a special operations forc’s background, took over as defense minister.

The new leadership’s objective is to reform the military without breaking it. But its success hinges entirely on the cohesion between the ministry and the general staff.

As for the time variable, the clock is ticking against Putin. Putin ordered the capture of the entire Dawnboss by December 31st, 2026.

However, the Institute for the Study of War deems this objective completely unrealistic. They calculate that Russia’s current tempo is lagging far behind what is required to seize the remaining 5,300 km of territory.

As Zilinski reminded the world, Putin has set a deadline for the Dawnboss 15 times throughout the war and missed every single one.

To sum it up, the fate of the war may not be decided by a single salient, but this salient perfectly encapsulates exactly why an entire army has fallen behind schedule.

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