First Reportage From Shandryholove, Retaken in Operation Vivaldi

Ukrainska Pravda reporters Tymur Khachuiev and Olha Kyrylenko have visited Shandryholove, a recently liberated village in Donetsk region, in what the outlet describes as an exclusive first report from the area after Operation Vivaldi.

An American Humvee covered with an anti-drone cage drops the journalists off in the village, also called Andryholove — the first letter, “Sh”, is missing from the road sign at the entrance. The village lies 15 kilometres from Lyman, the same distance from Sviatohirsk and about 30 kilometres from Izium, the nearest large town. “Get out, get out quickly,” shouts the driver from the 66th Brigade, callsign “General”: his Humvee is an ideal target for Russian fibre-optic drones, whose activity has increased since the large offensive operation Vivaldi was publicly announced.

What is left of the village

The soldiers who brought the reporters — Dynamite, Marine and Khoryv — tell them to spread out, listen to the sky and watch where they step. On the ground, especially in the still-green undergrowth, lie unexploded drones and shells, tangles of fibre-optic cable and the charred bodies of Russian soldiers — or rather what is left of them. Within a few hours the reporters count about ten such remains.

According to Dynamite, chief of staff of a tank battalion in the 66th Brigade, up to a thousand Russians died for this settlement. The enemy infiltrated in small groups and assaulted with vehicles. The 66th retook Shandryholove by cunning: first it brought the village under full fire control, then blocked Russian logistics to it, and only after a month of siege sent assault groups in to clear it.

Shandryholove is probably the first village on the Lyman front opened to journalists after Operation Vivaldi. Earlier, we reported on Biletskyi’s account of how Operation Vivaldi foiled Russia’s plan to bypass Donetsk region. Ukrainska Pravda also published a video about how the 66th Brigade retook the village.