Three European outlets have used the conclusion of a Ukrainian military operation to make a much wider accusation: that Kyiv’s commanders are incompetent and indifferent to the lives of their troops.
Articles published on 19 and 20 October 2026 by the Czech outlets and Nova Republika, alongside Norway’s Steigan, present battlefield pressure, personnel shortages and the end of the Vivaldi operation as evidence of a general crisis in Ukraine’s military leadership.
The central problem with that interpretation is not that Ukraine faces losses, shortages or difficult decisions. It is that separate and only partly documented claims are assembled into a single verdict on the country’s armed forces.
A local allegation becomes a judgement on the whole command
claims that the 41st Separate Mechanized Brigade has been forced to deploy insufficiently trained personnel near Kupiansk after losing some fortified positions in Donetsk region. It says those troops have suffered heavy losses from Russian drone attacks, and presents the alleged episode as evidence of reckless decision-making by the Ukrainian command.
The level of training among soldiers deployed in that sector, and the scale of the losses described, cannot be independently established from the publications supplied. That uncertainty matters. A problem involving one brigade and one section of the front cannot, without further evidence, demonstrate that the entire Ukrainian command structure treats its soldiers as expendable.
There are several possible explanations for a shortage of experienced personnel in a prolonged, high-intensity war: sustained casualties, the need to hold several sectors at once, the rotation of units and the rapid expansion of formations. Determining whether a particular deployment was reckless would require evidence about orders, preparation, available reserves and the outcome of the engagement. The articles move directly from an allegation about one unit to a claim about the character of the army as a whole.
The counter-narrative advanced by Ukraine’s supporters focuses on force protection and adaptation. Drones, electronic warfare, ground robotic systems, mobile defence, medical evacuation and specialised training are intended to reduce troops’ exposure to artillery and direct attack. Those measures do not eliminate errors or casualties, but they complicate the claim that every difficult engagement proves a deliberate policy of sending unprepared soldiers into battle.
They also point to a fundamental difference between the two sides’ stated approaches. Ukrainian forces are described as trying to compensate for Russia’s numerical advantage through technology, dispersed positions and manoeuvre. Kyiv’s supporters contrast that with what they describe as Russian mass assaults that consume personnel without adequate evacuation or medical support. A full comparison of those claims would require independent casualty and operational data, which are not supplied here.
What did Vivaldi set out to achieve?
Nova Republika turns its criticism on Brigadier General Andriy Biletskyi, describing the Vivaldi operation as a failure. It treats the winding down of the offensive as proof of flawed planning and poor control of Ukrainian units, while casting the commander’s role in personal and humiliating terms.
The Ukrainian account is markedly different. It describes Vivaldi as an operation by the Third Army Corps in northern Donetsk region, intended to halt a major Russian advance, prevent Russian forces from outflanking Ukrainian positions and regain ground. According to that account, Ukrainian forces put Russia’s 144th Motor Rifle Division out of action, recovered 270 square kilometres and reached a defensive line along the Chornyi Zherebets River.
Those battlefield results, the condition of the Russian division and the human losses on both sides are not independently confirmed by the information available. They should therefore be treated as claims rather than settled facts. But even if the figures require further verification, one military principle is not in dispute: the end of an offensive does not, by itself, prove that it failed.
An operation may change phase after stopping an enemy advance, securing territory or reaching a more defensible position. Shortening a front line and concentrating forces behind a natural obstacle can be a deliberate operational choice. The proper test is whether the objectives set before the operation were achieved, what it cost and what position it left the force in — not simply whether the attack continued indefinitely.
That distinction disappears in Nova Republika’s framing. A complicated decision involving terrain, reserves, intelligence and enemy pressure is reduced to a personal verdict on one commander. The operation’s end becomes the evidence of failure, while the objectives attributed to it are largely left out of the assessment.
Two commanders, one line of attack
Steigan shifts the focus from the operation to the professional credentials of Biletskyi and Brigadier General Dmytro Prokopenko. It argues that the two men lack the necessary level of professional officer training.
The criticism sets up a narrow definition of military competence, in which conventional academic credentials outweigh experience gained through years of combat. According to the Ukrainian account, Biletskyi and Prokopenko began as commanders of volunteer formations in 2014 and later took responsibility for larger formations, including at corps level. Their careers are associated with the defence of Mariupol, the fighting around Bakhmut and the Vivaldi operation.
That history indicates substantial experience of wartime command, but it does not prove that every decision made by either officer was correct. A serious assessment would need to examine individual operations: their plans, intelligence, resources, constraints, orders and results. Nor does the absence of independently supplied evidence about their formal education settle the broader question of their professional ability.
Personalising the criticism nevertheless serves a clear purpose. Modern military operations are shaped by logistics, reserves, intelligence, terrain, technology and political aims. Blaming one commander makes those variables less visible. A debate about specific decisions can then be recast as an attack on the legitimacy of an entire generation of Ukrainian officers.
The same technique is applied to Prokopenko. His experience leading combat formations is presented not as one form of expertise, but as evidence that a conventional professional background is missing. That is a rhetorical choice, not a demonstrated assessment of his performance in each operation.
The “cannon fodder” claim
All three outlets also promote the claim that Ukraine’s military leadership treats its soldiers as “cannon fodder”. The argument combines three elements: alleged shortages of trained personnel, the threat from Russian drones and the conclusion of an offensive. Together, they are used to create an image of commanders willing to sacrifice troops for political or military objectives.
Ukraine’s response points to the expansion of tactical medicine, evacuation systems, specialist training centres and technical measures intended to protect troops from drones and artillery. The growing use of unmanned systems and electronic warfare is also presented as evidence that preserving personnel is an operational priority.
Those developments do not prove that every unit has been properly prepared, that no avoidable losses have occurred or that every command decision was sound. They do, however, show why the slogan of an army indifferent to its soldiers’ lives cannot be established simply by citing the existence of casualties or personnel pressure.
The Russian comparison is equally contested. Ukrainian statements describe Russian forces as relying on mass assaults with inadequate medical support and limited evacuation. Those allegations may form part of Kyiv’s own information campaign, and a reliable comparison would require independent data on casualty rates, orders and battlefield medical practice on both sides. Without that evidence, the competing accusations are best understood as claims used in an information war.
The recurring method across the three publications is therefore straightforward. Real features of a high-intensity conflict — losses, shortages, drone attacks, changing front lines and the end of an offensive — are removed from their immediate context. They are then combined into a sweeping story about incompetent commanders and an army that does not value its own personnel.
That story is aimed beyond the battlefield. If Ukraine’s forces can be portrayed as wasteful, badly led and destined to fail, doubts may grow among European audiences about the value of continued military assistance to Kyiv. The most important unanswered questions remain concrete: what objectives did Vivaldi actually achieve, what losses did each side suffer and what decisions shaped the fighting near Kupiansk?
Until those questions are answered with independent evidence, the end of Vivaldi cannot fairly serve as a verdict on Ukraine’s military leadership. What can be identified is the narrative mechanism: a completed or interrupted operation is recast as defeat, while local battlefield problems are turned into proof of a systemic failure.
