Zelensky thanks troops after 125 sq km reclaimed in Lyman
President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the 66th Separate Mechanized Brigade’s command post in the Lyman area on 30 September, thanking the troops for recapturing more than 125 square kilometres of territory during Operation Vivaldi, according to The Kyiv Independent. Ukraine’s Third Army Corps said its use of heavy bomber drones to air-drop unmanned ground vehicles more than 10 km behind Russian lines helped seize the reclaimed area, a tactic first employed in the conflict.
The corps also deployed the robots to clear 30 km of mines in Shandryholove and to lay mines at night, accelerating assaults. Earlier in the offensive, Ukrainian forces halted a Russian push near Druzhkivka, claiming hundreds of enemy casualties, and captured several villages and settlements in Donetsk, seizing over 250 Russian soldiers.