Ukraine takes back key city after Russia tried to illegally annex region
A key city within a region Russia tried to illegally annex less than a day previously has been liberated, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday his forces are now control of the strategic eastern city of Lyman, after Russia's military announced its retreat.
President Zelenskyy posted a video on his Telegram channel, saying the city had been fully cleared.
Russia’s loss of Lyman, which it had been using as a transport and logistics hub, is a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine and heightening its threats to use nuclear force.
Ukraine's recent gains have embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin and prompted rare domestic criticism.
“Russia’s withdrawal from Lyman also represents a significant political setback given that it is located within Donetsk Oblast, a region Russia supposedly aimed to ‘liberate’ and has attempted to illegally annex,” the MoD said.
Ukrainian forces have retaken swaths of territory, notably in the northeast around Kharkiv, in a counteroffensive in recent weeks.
In the latest major development, Ukrainian forces encircled Russian troops holding the hub of Lyman in the east, forcing the Russians to withdraw.
Taking the city paves the way for Ukrainian troops to potentially push farther into territory Russia has occupied.
Lyman had been an important link in the Russian front line for ground communications and logistics.
The city is in the Donetsk region near the border with Luhansk, two of the four regions that Russia illegally annexed Friday after forcing the population to vote in referendums at gunpoint.
Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed to have inflicted damage on Ukrainian forces in battling to hold Lyman, but said outnumbered Russian troops were withdrawn to more favourable positions.
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Meanwhile, Russian attacks also targeted the city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday.
Ukraine’s military said it carried out strikes on multiple Russian command posts, ammunition depots and two S-300 anti-aircraft batteries. The reports of military activity couldn't be immediately verified.
The Russian retreat from north-east Ukraine in recent weeks has revealed evidence of widespread, routine torture of both civilians and soldiers, notably in the strategic city of Izium, according to the Associated Press (AP).
AP journalists located 10 torture sites in the Ukrainian town, including a deep sunless pit in a residential compound, a clammy underground jail that reeked of urine, a medical clinic and a kindergarten.
Russian officials release limited information about military activity in what the Kremlin still refuses to call a war.
Putin frames the Ukrainian gains as a US-orchestrated effort to destroy Russia, and last week he heightened threats of nuclear force in some of his toughest, most anti-Western rhetoric to date.