KRAMATORSK, Ukraine – On Sunday, Ukrainian forces hunted down Russian latecomers in the key city of Lyman, which was kidnapped from Russia after its demoralized troops, according to a major Russian newspaper, fled with the “empty eyes” and despite Moscow’s baseless claim that it annexed the region surrounding the city.
Two days after the president Vladimir Putin Russia held a grand ceremony to celebrate the incorporation of four Ukrainian territories into Russia, the debacle in the city – Lyman, a strategic rail hub in the eastern Donbas region – has increased pressure on an already struggling Russian leadership. withered criticism at home for managing the war and recruiting up to 300,000 men for military service.
The withdrawal of Russia from Lymanlocated on the bank of a river that served as a natural border between the Russian and Ukrainian front lines, it came after weeks of bitter fighting.
In an unusually blunt article published on Sunday, the leading Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that in the last days of their occupation, the Russian forces in Lyman had been plagued by desertion, poor planning and delayed arrival of reserves.
“The risk of encirclement or shameful confinement has become too great and the Russian command has decided to back down,” wrote a war correspondent traveling with the fleeing Russian forces, adding that the discouraged soldiers “with empty eyes. “they had barely escaped Lyman with their arrangements.
The withdrawal is a major blow to Russian forces that could further undermine the Kremlin’s position in the Donbas, an area fertile and rich in minerals from eastern Ukraine which was at the center of Putin’s war goals.
Putin’s office has not publicly commented on Lyman’s loss, although pro-war commentators and two of his closest allies have harshly criticized the Defense Ministry for withdrawing from the city.
Seemingly unperturbed by its military setbacks, Moscow continued its annexation effort on Sunday when the country’s Constitutional Court formally accepted Putin’s decision to claim the four Ukrainian regions as part of Russia.
Reaction
but the president Volodymyr Zelensky Ukraine quickly tried to capitalize on the withdrawal politically, saying it showed that Moscow’s attempt to illegally annex a sizable part of the country was an “absolute farce” and that “there is now a Ukrainian flag” in the Donbas.
But Ukrainian recoveries in the areas Russia now claims came as Putin increasingly hinted that he would resort to options. nuclear in the conflict, alarming US officials.
On Friday, after Russian appointees held discredited referendums in the four partially occupied areas of Ukraine, Putin announced that the territory, including Lyman, would be absorbed by Russia and that its inhabitants would be Russian citizens.forever”.
Putin said residents of the provinces had overwhelmingly voted in favor of membership Russian Federationbut Ukraine and its Western allies dismissed the referendums as a farce, as most of the citizens fled the region and many of those who remained voted at gunpoint.
Despite the claims and boasting of the Russian leader at Friday’s ceremony in a large hall of the Kremlin (he denounced Washington for “Satanism“), the Russian troops withdrew from Lyman only the next day.
Initially, Ukrainian commanders thought they would quickly retake Lyman, with the forces almost completely encircling the city.
But the Russian army sent reinforcements.
Fierce fighting erupted in the dense forests and along the banks of the Siversky Donets River as Ukraine cut off the roads used to move troops and ammunition into the city.
“There were significantly strong forces in Lyman and around Lyman,” Colonel Sergei Cherevaty, spokesman for Ukrainian troops fighting in the east, said in an interview.
The Russian soldiers withdrew chaoticallyseparating from their units and escaping in smaller groups into surrounding forests, Cherevaty said, with many killed or captured.
Between 2,000 and 3,000 Russian soldiers they were in Lyman when Ukrainian forces reached the outskirts of the city on Friday, he said.
As Ukrainian soldiers and police fanned out through Lyman looking for Russian latecomers, it was unclear on Sunday how many had fallen into Ukrainian hands.
Zelenskyy said the city was completely cleared by Sunday afternoon as Ukrainian forces patrolled and provided aid to residents who had survived months of Russian occupation and weeks of fighting.
The artillery shells damaged much of Lyman.
The city lies largely ruinedwithout electricity, water or regular food supplies, according to Stanislav Zagrusky, police chief of the Kramatorsk district, which includes Lyman.
Zagrusky said in an interview that the resumption of Ukrainian police patrols on Saturday night, just hours after the Ukrainian army declared the city liberated and the Russian army admitted it had withdrawn, the absurd of the Kremlin’s claim to sovereignty over the four Ukrainian territories.
Damage
“We don’t care at all what they say, what decrees they issue, what announcements they make,” he said of the Kremlin authorities, deploring the conditions in which Russian troops had left Lyman residents during the occupation:
“They have done absolutely nothing for people all this time.”
“They didn’t try to restore electricity or water and people were living without regular food supplies,” he said, adding that many residents needed. medical care.
Zagrusky said that while the Ukrainian army took prisoners after the battle, police officers hadn’t arrested the Russian latecomers until noon on Sunday.
His officers found that the Russians had hastily abandoned a police station, leaving it full of garbage
Police said about 5,000 people remained in the city, which before the war had a population of 20,000 inhabitants.
As Ukrainian forces gained full control of Lyman, the commanders turned their attention to the next steps in a punitive offensive that left Russian troops in the eastern Donbas region in an increasingly dangerous position.
From Lyman, Ukraine could push further east to try and drive Russian troops out of the towns and villages they conquered over the summer, although cooler temperatures could slow the fighting and Russian lines are expected to be strengthened by new troops recruited.
Military analysts also warn that Ukrainian forces, if pushed too hard, could do so be overloaded and unable to defend the territory just claimed by the Russian counterattacks.
None of the four illegally annexed regions is completely under Russian control.
Ukraine’s progress in the east and south has left the Kremlin forces with ever-dwindling options for seizing more territory.
In the south, Ukrainian forces are engaged in a ferocious counter-offensive in the Kherson region, which Russia seized in the first weeks of the war.
Unlike the Northeast, there has been little movement in either direction, although the odds seem increasingly high against Russian forces, most of which have been cut off from their supply lines by successful Ukrainian attacks. key bridges spanning the vast Dnieper River.
Through the Dnieper, Russian forces trying to push north into the Zaporizhzhia region, which Putin claimed to have annexed, were paralyzed for months with strong Ukrainian defensive lines.
For now, Russian troops fleeing Lyman appear to be moving to reinforce their lines 25 miles south around the city of Bakhmut.
That appears to be the only area along the long eastern front line where Russian forces are on the offensive, led mainly by members of the Wagner Group, a private military contractor, whose fighters have been pummeling Ukrainian forces for months.
“It is very difficult because they have been attacking with artillery for several months and constantly attacking with tanks and infantry,” Cherevaty said.
“Maintaining them is difficult, but they are succeeding.”
Andrew E. Kramer reported from Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Michael Schwirtz from Kiev, Ukraine and Norimitsu Onishi from Montreal.
c.2022 The New York Times Company
Source: Clarin
