Biletsky said the operation prevented Russian forces from flanking the Sloviansk and Kramatorsk urban belt, protected the Kharkiv to Sloviansk supply highway, and forced Russia's Zapad grouping to redeploy units from the 1st Tank Army, easing pressure on Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi. In the earlier third phase announced on Sept. 28, Ukrainian forces retook 51 square kilometers—including Nove, Ridkodub, Katerynivka, Karpivka and Novomykhailivka—while causing 2,000 Russian casualties and taking more than 250 prisoners after deceiving Russian units about the main attack axis and breaching fortifications with Soviet-era BTR-60 armored personnel carriers converted into remote-controlled explosive drones.
Ukrainian forces disclosed the Operation Vivaldi advances on a delayed schedule for operational security, with battlefield mapping group DeepState confirming the latest three liberated villages from fighting that primarily took place in July and August. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the campaign relied heavily on unmanned ground systems to replace infantry in high-risk tasks, alongside 15,700 ground robot missions and 36,000 strikes on Russian supply lines up to 120 kilometers behind the front.