The past week crystallized a number of things. When you add them all together, however, the key thing is that it demonstrated just how important the US has become, through the Trump administration, in aiding the Russian war effort.
This might have been hidden in all the distracting stardust being thrown in the air about the Graham Tariff Bill, or the recently announced (extremely weird) possible sale of some motley air defense capabilities to Ukraine (arrival uncertain and unknown).
However, behind the stardust which the press seems too out of its depth to properly interrogate the reality is that the war has entered into a fascinating contrast.
On the land, where the Ukrainians were less reliant on the US, it is the Ukrainians who are showing the initiative and dealing some substantial blows to Russian military strength. If what we are hearing about Operation Vivaldi is only partially true, the Ukrainians are continuing to advance in the combined operations of infantry and UAVs.
In the ranged war, relying on Ukrainian sources, the Ukrainians are also showing some important strengths — when they concentrate on the right targets. However, it is in their ranged campaign against the Ukrainians, aided enormously by the US starving Ukraine of air defense (a great example of why relying on the weapons of another power is always so dangerous) that the Russians are being most effective — and almost certainly will continue to be so for the upcoming winter.
Add it up, and what we see is that Russia’s area of initiative in the war has been enormously abetted by the US and Donald Trump.
Operation Vivaldi: Ukrainian initiative on the front line
For weeks now there have been unconfirmed reports of an ongoing Ukrainian operation to push Russian forces back from outside of Lyman and, possibly, back into Luhansk. I’ve referred to this a few times, including in last weekend’s update.
However, without formal Ukrainian confirmation, I did not want to say too much about it. At that point, we had some more general statements from Zelensky about Ukraine taking the initiative in the land war, but nothing specific.
This week, something changed and the Ukrainians started speaking specifically about their operation and even gave it a code name—Operation Vivaldi.
Vivaldi is being conducted, it seems, primarily by the 3rd Army Corps commanded by Gen Andrii Biletskyi. Biletskyi confirmed this publicly on Sept. 15, saying the corps had launched Vivaldi under conditions of “maximum information silence.” The name refers somewhat cheekily to Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (shout-out to Baroque music).
That is because the Ukrainians are saying the operation has four stages—or “seasons” and we are only now in the first stage. Biletskyi also asked the public not to “give away the spoilers” because the operation still requires silence.
There was this excellent story in The Kyiv Independent, which quoted Biletskyi and which provides a good overview of what we know and, crucially, what we do not know about Vivaldi.
Since then there has been more information coming out from Ukrainian sources. Yesterday (September 19) there were some official statements released by the Chief of Staff and Deputy Commander of the Third Army Corps, Petro Horbatenko. You can read much of what he said in this report.
Horbatenko also described an ongoing operation making substantial progress:
“We will continue to make progress in a week. Accordingly, in the near future we will inform you about new details regarding the operation and new results regarding its success….We continue to move. What was announced is one figure, it will increase over time. New data on successes and liberated settlements will come, we just can’t reveal and talk about everything yet. The enemy on this section is broken, disorganized. He is trying to transfer special forces units there to close the breakthrough, simply grinding them into “meat”, without achieving any success.”
Horbatenko also confirmed that the Ukrainians are still in stage 1 of the four stages of Vivaldi. He, and others, have also spoken about 75 square kilometers being liberated.
These latest reports also provided some detailed news about the military units involved, which are units of the 60th separate mechanized brigade, the 125th separate heavy mechanized brigade, the battalion tactical group of the 3rd assault brigade, the 3rd separate reconnaissance and 25th separate anti-tank battalions of the corps, the 66th separate mechanized brigade, the 85th tactical group of the 8th SSO regiment, the Artan special unit of the GUR, and the 10th border detachment “Dozor.”
That is important as it shows the preparation the Ukrainians have put into this. This is a range of specialized units, all of which have seemingly been specially prepared for the operation.
And, not to reinforce this point every week, but it shows how the Ukrainians have been adapting their forces for the land war for a long time. In the Kyiv Independent story there was this description of how the Ukrainians are advancing in the modern battlespace and not suffering massive casualties:
“Instead, territory is taken by small groups of infantry and assault teams that focus on concealment, while being supported constantly by drones that scan the battlespace, strike enemy targets and shelters, and drop supplies and ammunition to the teams on the ground.”
This kind of extremely close and precise action, only possible if highly trained and motivated troops and drone forces can operate extremely well together. This minimizes the amount of time the attacking forces need to spend in the open, allowing them to move swiftly from point to point, take cover, and still be supplied.
It’s exactly what General Havrylov laid out as the intention nine months ago—when the western media, led by its deeply flawed analytical community, was still saying Ukraine needed to draft more of its young population and send them to the front.
Now, with the Ukrainians keeping a lid on the specifics of the advance. Information about how much territory they have retaken is coming more from Russian sources than Ukrainian. And we need to be very careful with this. Rybar, a Russian source, has the Ukrainians crossing over into Luhansk Oblast.
Ukrainian data also supports the idea that something significant is going on. There has been a notable comments on Russian tactics and casualties as part of the Vivaldi discussion. Deputy Commander of the 3rd Corps, Maksym Zhorin, talked about the lack of adaptation in the Russian military:
“In addition to the advance itself, we can say that during this operation a fairly large number of enemy officers were also destroyed and a fairly significant number of enemy personnel were taken prisoner. Perhaps, in recent years, this is the largest replenishment of the exchange fund that came from the Ukrainian side.”
Horbatenko was even more pithy on Russian losses, saying: “Russian tactics generally do not change. These are just meaty assaults.”
And Ukrainian claims of Russian casualties over the past week (this is for all fronts, not just Vivaldi) have spiked. The Ukrainian General Staff claimed 11,090 Russian personnel losses in the seven daily reports from 14 to 20 September 2026, an average of about 1,584 a day. Here is a breakdown.
This is a crushing casualty rate, btw. If it were maintained for a month (30 days) it would be equal to 47,529. For 31 days we are talking over 49,000.
We must obviously be careful about not over-reacting to this. I dislike it intensely when people talk about a Russian “collapse” which makes it seem like the Ukrainians can start making swift advances. That still seems very unlikely in this battle space. Even large gaps in the line can be closed with drone forces and humans cannot survive for very long out in the open. So please rein such talk in.
However, the reality of this summer’s fighting seems to be this. Ukraine is demonstrating the capacity to take the initiative with new and better ways of fighting, which keep Ukrainian casualties down and ratchet Russian ones up. And the best thing about it is that the US cannot help the Russians that much at this point—which is a major contrast to the next story.
Russia batters Ukraine at range
The last week was actually a lighter week than the one before when it came to Russian ranged attacks on Ukraine. They launched attacks every night, but with a smaller number of systems than the seven days previously. Here is a table of the number of units attacking—mostly drones (which means Geran/Shaheds) from Sept 14-19. We do not have last night’s figures yet.
This contrasts with the week before, when in one night alone there was a Russian attack with 453 drones.
The reality of the ranged war, even with these reduced attacks, remains the same, however. Ukraine can do little to intercept Russian ballistic missiles. The attack on September 17, for instance, the only example of the Russians making a large ballistic missile assault last week, saw the Ukrainians claiming that they could not intercept one of them. The Ukrainian Air Force listed only Shahed/Gerans and Banderols as being neutralized that night.
[Note: Banderols are cruise missiles, not ballistic missiles.]
And even with the reduced weight of attack, the Ukrainians were hit hard this week. The night of the ballistic missile attack saw Kyiv targeted, and possibly water infrastructure hit.
Indeed, this slower week could be a sign of the Russians stocking up for larger attacks in the fall and winter. They have a track record of doing that.
This is the reality. Ukraine, because of the US depriving it of Patriots. Even in the announcement yesterday that the US might be selling some air defense capability to Europe to pass on to Ukraine, there was no mention of Patriots.
What was announced was some “possible” sale of deficient systems. Indeed, the press did not even know how to report what happened—as in this CBS report.
“In a congressional notification, the State Department said that it made “a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Ukraine” for buying air defense development upgrades and related equipment and services. According to the statement, the Ukrainian government requested to buy S-300 Clone missiles, GAM-67 missiles, Range-Extended Air Defense Laser Guided Rocket missile systems, as well as various launchers, counter-drone radars, trailers and spare parts.”
My guess is that this is a political stunt by the Trump administration to look like it is doing something, when it is not. It will make no difference this winter.
And there we have it. Confirmation that, even on a relatively less damaging week, the big advantage that the Russians have is the one provided by the USA—which is doing nothing to help Ukraine in this vital area, and indeed is stringing the Ukrainians along and leaving them exposed.
Without this help, Putin and the Russians would be deprived of the strongest military card that they can play.
Trump, diesel and Ukrainian energy strikes
Another area where the Ukrainians confirmed that they can be effective when not impeded in the US, is their ongoing campaign against Russian fuel production. We have confirmation of that this week because Donald Trump came out and pleaded with the Ukrainians to do Putin a favor and stop attacking Russian refineries.
Things were so bad that Trump begged once and lied twice — before the Ukrainians made it clear exactly what their position is. It was a fascinating “exchange” that started last Sunday (13 September). Then Trump said this to the press:
“Mr. Zelenskyy has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia…We spoke to Mr. Zelenskyy about it. There are plenty of other targets. Don’t hit diesel fuel, because that’s hurting, that’s hurting the world.”
Even Trump has to know that it is his war with Iran that has so distorted the world oil market and done most of the work causing the steep rise in world diesel prices (which are pretty remarkable). One study is that the Iran war has caused three times the reduction in world diesel supplies as that caused by the Ukrainian campaign against Russian oil.
However, Trump decided to blame the Ukrainians and help Putin when discussing the issue publicly. And this was not all. On September 14, Trump doubled-down on his claim that the rise in diesel prices was Ukraine’s fault but, miraculously, claimed that he had gotten the Ukrainians and the Russians to agree to stop all energy attacks. He tweeted:
“Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets. Russia has agreed to do, likewise!…The World’s Diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia/Ukraine War, not Iran.”
It is still shocking how the President of the US can just make up nonsense, spew it out, and some people will believe him. We could see that this latest announcement was complete and total nonsense because on the subsequent days, both the Ukrainians and Russians went out and openly attacked energy targets.
Overnight on September 14-15, the Ukrainians hit the Syzran refinery and on Thursday, September 17 a Ukrainian drone attack damaged an oil refinery at Yaroslavl (both refineries are still reportedly out of action).
Zelensky even openly contradicted Trump, in denying any deal had been reached. He said Ukraine might consider a deal, but as of now “Russia hasn’t stopped striking our energy sector… And our responses to them for this are tangible.”
It was a revealing exchange. As always for Trump, Ukraine is the baddies and Russia is to be protected. That will never change.
The more interesting thing is the confirmation of the seriousness of the Ukrainian campaign on Russian oil production. It is why this must be the key target of the Ukrainian ranged campaign.
If the Ukrainians have no ability to defend themselves against Russian ballistic missiles because of the US, the least they can do is not listen to the US when the American president pleads with them to stop their most effective strategic campaign. For now, they seem to have received the message.
Phillips O’Brien is professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrew.
Asia Times republishes the weekend update with permission from Phillips’s Newsletter, his reader-supported publication. Read the original weekend update here. Get his other posts throughout the week by subscribing here.
