Ukraine yesterday claimed full control of the eastern logistics hub of Lyman, Kyiv’s most significant battlefield gain in weeks, providing a potential staging post for further attacks to the east while heaping further pressure on the Kremlin.
The stinging setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin came after he proclaimed the annexation of four regions covering nearly one-fifth of Ukraine on Friday, an area that includes Lyman. Kyiv and the West have condemned the proclamation as an “illegitimate farce.”
“As of 12:30 [9:30am GMT], Lyman is fully cleared,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a short video clip on his Telegram channel. “Thank you to our troops ... Glory to Ukraine.”
Photo: Courtesy of the 81 Airborne Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces via Reuters
The Russian Ministry of Defence on Saturday said that it was pulling troops out of the area “in connection with the creation of a threat of encirclement.”
It did not mention the city in its daily update on fighting in Ukraine yesterday, although it said Russian forces had destroyed seven artillery and missile depots in the Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Donetsk.
Russian forces captured Lyman from Ukraine in May and had used it as a logistics and transport hub for its operations in the north of the Donetsk region. Losing it is Russia’s largest battlefield loss since Ukraine’s lightning counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region last month.
Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk region that neighbors Donetsk, said control over Lyman could prove a “key factor” in helping Ukraine reclaim lost territory in his region, whose full capture Moscow announced in early July after weeks of grinding advances.
The British Ministry of Defence described Lyman as operationally important given that it commands a key road crossing over the Siverskyi Donets River, behind which Russia has been attempting to consolidate its defenses.
Russia likely experienced heavy casualties during the withdrawal, the ministry said in a statement. Russia had 5,000 to 5,500 troops in the city before the Ukrainian attack, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern forces said on Saturday.
The battlefield setbacks have triggered a fresh wave of criticism within Russia of how its military operation is being handled.
Putin ally Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov on Saturday called for a change of strategy “right up to the declaration of martial law in the border areas and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons.”
Other top officials, including former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, have suggested Russia might need to resort to nuclear weapons, but Kadyrov’s call was the most urgent and explicit. Washington has said it would respond decisively to any use of nuclear weapons.
Pope Francis yesterday made an impassioned appeal to Putin to stop “this spiral of violence and death” in Ukraine, saying the crisis there was risking a nuclear escalation with uncontrollable global consequences.
In an address to thousands of people in St Peter’s Square, Francis also asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to be open to any “serious peace proposal.”
Meanwhile, Russia has lost its seat on the governing council of a UN agency that supports the cooperation and coordination of civil air travel among 193 countries.
Russia failed to get enough support to keep its seat on the 36-member governing council of the International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO, according to results posted on Twitter on Saturday.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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