The Ukrainian army entered on Saturday 1is October, in Lyman, a strategic town in eastern Ukraine, in the Donetsk region. ” The Ukrainian flag is already flying over Lyman,” confirmed, on Saturday evening, the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, in his daily address.
Under Moscow’s control since the end of May, Lyman is an important railway junction, which notably allowed the supply of Russian troops.
« The fighting continues but there is no trace of any pseudo-referendum there,” continued Volodymyr Zelensky in reference to the referendums of annexation of four Ukrainian regions, including that of Donetsk, carried out by Russia this week and strongly condemned by kyiv and the West.
The capture of Lyman was announced in the middle of the afternoon by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense on Twitter: “Ukrainian air assault forces enter Lyman, Donetsk region. » In a one-minute video that accompanies the message, two Ukrainian soldiers are seen waving and then hanging the light blue and yellow national flag next to the “Lyman” sign at the entrance to the city.
Ukrainian Air Assault Forces are entering Lyman, Donetsk region. #UAarmy has and will always have the decisive vote… https://t.co/l8sSAcbms7
“Threatened with encirclement, Allied troops were withdrawn from Lyman to more favorable lines”, for its part indicated in a press release the Russian Ministry of Defense. Earlier on Saturday, the Ukrainian army claimed to have “encircled” several thousand Russian soldiers in this city in the Donetsk region, annexed by Russia on Friday.
Moscow withdraws into southern Ukraine
According to experts from the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, Russia is now making the defense of occupied territories in southern Ukraine its priority. “The decision not to reinforce the vulnerable Kupyansk or Lyman front lines was almost certainly made by Putin, not the military command, and suggests that Putin cares much more about holding the strategic ground of the Kherson Oblasts and from Zaporizhia than from Luhansk oblast”, specifies the institute in an analysis published on Saturday evening.
Reacting to the Russian withdrawal from the city, the leader of the Russian Republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, denounced the “nepotism” reigning in the Russian army and called on Moscow to use “low-power nuclear weapons” in Ukraine, without taking “Account of the ‘Western American Community'”.