The recapture of the eastern city of Lyman – on territory recently annexed by Moscow – raises questions about how Russia can keep the surrounding areas cut off from supply routes.
Questions about Russia’s faltering military action in Ukraine continued to be raised as Kyiv declared it had full control of the key city east of Lyman after Moscow’s troops withdrew.
This has been Kyiv’s most important battlefield gain in weeks, providing the opportunity for increased attacks in the east while putting more pressure on the Kremlin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Sunday that his forces had captured Lyman after besieging it a day earlier.
“As of 12:30 pm (09:30 GMT) Lyman has been completely removed. Thank you to our troops, our warriors,” he said in a video address.
The Russian military did not comment on Lyman on Sunday after announcing the day before that it would withdraw its forces there to move in. “More convenient location”.
‘Dilemma’
The loss of Lyman is a blow to Russian forces, who have used the city for months as an important logistics and railway hub in the Donetsk region to move military equipment and troops. and other necessary supplies.
“Without those routes, it would be more difficult, so it presents a dilemma for the Russians going forward,” said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Lyman, which Ukraine recaptured by encircling Russian troops, in the Donetsk region near the border with the Luhansk region. These are two of four regions or entourage that Russia annexed on Friday after people there voted in referendums, which Ukraine and the West call illegal.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, said Lyman’s demise showed that Russia was “deprived of the right to defend Luhansk” to keep occupied territory in southern Ukraine.
“Ukrainian and Russian sources repeatedly indicate that Russian forces continue to reinforce Russian positions in the Kherson and Zaporizhia towers, despite the recent collapse of the Kharkiv-Izyum front and even as Russian positions around Lyman collapsed”. It says.
‘Courage, bravery, skills’
In a daily intelligence briefing on Sunday, the UK military described the recapture of Lyman as a “significant political setback” for Moscow. The capture of the city opens the way for the Ukrainian army to have the ability to push deeper into Russian-occupied territory.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Ukraine’s capture of a city in the territory after President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation proves that the Ukrainians can repel Russian forces, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. know Sunday.
“We saw that they were able to take a new town, Lyman, and that proves that the Ukrainians are making progress, able to push back the Russian forces because of their courage, because of their bravery, their skill. , but of course also because of the advanced weapons that the United States and other allies are providing,” Stoltenberg said in an interview with American television station NBC.
Ukrainian forces have recaptured many territories, notably in the northeast around Kharkivin a counterattack in recent weeks that has shamed the Kremlin and led to rare domestic criticism of Putin’s war.
A flashy Kremlin merger ceremony on Friday did not stem the tide of criticism within Russia for its handling of “special military operations”.
Putin’s ally, Ramzan Kadyrovleaders of Russia’s southern Chechnya region, on Saturday called for a change of strategy “from the moment of declaring martial law in the border areas and using low-yield nuclear weapons”.
Other Russian hawks criticized Russian generals and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on social media for overseeing failures, but relentlessly attacked Putin.
