1,600 Russians Died In One Tiny Ukrainian Village

Zelena Dolyna is a graveyard

3rd Army Corps photo

by DAVID AXE

The village of Zelena Dolyna sits astride a road threading south toward the town of Lyman in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. It’s not much to look at. It’s also a blood-soaked graveyard for no fewer than 1,600 Russian troops. In terms of death per square meter, it might be one of the deadliest patches of ground in all of Ukraine for Russian invaders.

In two years of brutal fighting, the Russian 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies fought their way toward and through Zelena Dolyna, ultimately capturing it in July 2025. Eight months later in March of this year, the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps launched its Operation Vivaldi. In a heady six months, the 3rd Army Corps exploited gaps in Russian defenses in northern Donetsk and, deploying robots and then mechanized infantry, defeated the overextended Russian field armies.

Retreating east amid heavy losses, the Russians gave up Zelena Dolyna—and kept falling back, all the way across the Zherebets River. Operation Vivaldi erased 18 months of Russian advances, partially restored a robust defensive zone around the last free cities in Donetsk, and inflicted shocking casualties on the Kremlin’s forces. Thousands of Russians died. All told in more than a year of fighting, 1,600 of them died in tiny Zelena Dolyna.

We know this because the Russians know it—and a Belarusian hacker group gained access to Russia’s official death records, which take pains to specify the nearest settlement when a Russian combatant falls in combat. Belarusian Cyber Partisans scrutinized the records and tallied at least 393,881 war deaths on Russia’s side between February 2022 and late August this year. For comparison, analysis group UALosses.org tallied at least 106,285 Ukrainians killed in action between February 2022 and October this year.

That’s roughly 3.7 dead Russians for every dead Ukrainian. The fighting in and around Zelena Dolyna helps to explain the lopsided loss ratio. To advance through the village, which had a prewar population of fewer than 200, the Russian 3rd Motor Rifle Division used the same manpower-first tactics that have defined Russian operations in Ukraine for two years now.

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.