Ukrainian commanders have given New York Times reporters access to an operation that helped Ukraine reverse some of the territorial gains Russia had made during the war, according to a report published on 7 November 2026. The access followed months of secrecy around the military effort, which the publication says is reportedly named Vivaldi.
The reporting covers bunkers and training grounds, the places where planning and preparation for the operation took place. Ukrainian commanders opened these locations to the newspaper after a long period in which details of the effort were kept closely guarded, offering a rare look at how such operations are organised behind the front line. The publication's preview indicates that the access was granted on the commanders' own initiative rather than as part of a routine press arrangement, although the notes available do not spell out the terms under which reporters were admitted.
The focus of the report is the operation's role in pushing back Russian forces in some areas where Moscow had previously advanced. The notes available for this story do not state how much territory was regained, so the scale of the gains cannot be confirmed from the reporting available here. Nor is there any figure for the number of troops involved, the duration of the fighting, or the locations where the gains were made.
Casualty and cost figures for the operation have not been made public in the material available, and the units or commanders involved are not identified in the notes. The timing of the operation is likewise not set out beyond the article's 2026 publication date, leaving its chronology unclear. No official Ukrainian or Russian statement about the operation is quoted in the preview, so the account currently rests on the reporting of access granted to the newspaper.
It also remains uncertain how much ground was actually recovered and whether those gains will hold. Russian forces have repeatedly contested areas that changed hands during the war, and the durability of any Ukrainian advance will depend on developments that have not been reported in the material seen so far. Any assessment of the operation's wider military consequences, including its effect on front-line positions or on future Ukrainian planning, would go beyond what the available notes can support.
The access granted to reporters is itself a notable step for Ukrainian military leadership, which has generally limited public detail on its operations for security reasons. The New York Times preview indicates that fuller details are contained in the complete article, which should be read in full for the reporting as published.
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