The latest battlefield uses of such robots have helped the Ukrainian military’s Operation Vivald reclaim up to 96 square miles of territory. Operation Vivaldi has also defeated Russian forces that were the northern part of a pincer movement attempting to encircle Ukraine’s “Fortress Belt” cities in eastern Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a think bank based in Washington, DC.
Vivaldi’s success and the fall season
Since launching in May 2026, the Ukrainian Third Army Corps operation has practiced strict operational security that has kept successful advances under wraps for a long time. That has helped mislead Russian leaders, whose operational awareness is also hindered by what the ISW described as a “pervasive culture of lying within the Russian military” about the real battlefield situation when things aren’t going well for Russia.
Operation Vivaldi’s success has also been enabled by Ukraine’s intermediate-range drone strike campaign targeting Russian fuel supplies, which has reduced the availability of diesel fuel for generators powering Russian electronic warfare systems. At the same time, Ukraine’s own electronic warfare systems reportedly neutralized about 20,000 Russian drones.
Together, such factors have helped Ukraine achieve “tactical drone overmatch” while supporting Ukrainian mechanized advances toward Lyman in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, according to the ISW assessment. Members of Russia’s elite drone unit, called Rubicon, were withdrawn from the region after the Ukrainian Third Army Corps inflicted losses on the Russian drone pilots and the unit’s resources, according to The Kyiv Independent.
But the Russian military is still directing armored vehicles and drone units such as Rubicon toward Dobropillya in the Donetsk Oblast in preparation for future mechanized assaults this autumn. During the summer, the Russian military tested a new anti-drone protection system for its most modern tanks that saw limited success—although Ukrainian drones still overwhelmed the tanks’ defenses.
The Russian military has also adapted many of the same drone warfare innovations used by Ukraine while sometimes developing its own as it continues attacking Ukrainian cities with missiles and drones. Russia has also stepped up a campaign of “hybrid warfare” against Europe, with recent examples including an explosive drone boat turning up near a vital offshore gas site and an attempt to attack parked Ukrainian cargo aircraft with a drone at Leipzig Airport in Germany.
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