On Saturday, just a day later, the Ukrainian army regained control of Lyman, a town in the Donetsk region believed to be important in the logistics of the war in the east of the country, in what was described as a bitter defeat for Russian forces, with threatening speech which Putin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions. The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged the retreat, saying its soldiers had moved to a “more advantageous” position to avoid falling into the trap.
Videos released by Ukrainian authorities on Saturday show soldiers raising yellow and blue flags and celebrating the recapture. Operations to recapture Lyman, which had a population of about 20,000 before the war, lasted weeks in the dense forests surrounding the city and on either side of the nearby Siversky River, which had served as a natural front line in that city of Ukraine. Lyman was used by the Russian army as a logistical base for military operations in this area and the Ukrainian victory is therefore considered strategically important. The Ukrainians are also said to have captured dozens of Russian soldiers.
It’s another success of the counter-offensive by the Ukrainian army, which for weeks has been retaking areas in the east of the country occupied by Russian forces and taking control of almost the entire Kharkiv region, a front that is believed to be fairly solid in Russian language is hands. . According to The New York Times, Lyman may serve as an outpost across the Siversky River to facilitate further eastward reconquests.
Lyman town center today.
Soldiers from the 81st Airborne Brigade and the National Guard tore down the enemy flags. pic.twitter.com/5w2DpSfqId– Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) October 1, 2022
Just hours earlier, Putin had bluntly announced that the four Ukrainian regions annexed after the illegal referenda would remain Russian “forever”. For this reason, too, the taking of Lyman is considered a particularly humiliating defeat for the Russian army, which is currently going through a phase of great difficulty. Following the announcement of the withdrawal, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov criticized the recent failures of the Russian army and suggested the Kremlin use low-intensity nuclear weapons. In his Friday speech, Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons, saying their use by the US in 1945 had “set a precedent”.
– Also read: What Putin’s speech means