The Donetsk separatist leader cannot really enjoy the annexation celebrations in Moscow. In the city of Lyman, Russian troops are surrounded and a military debacle is imminent. Pushilin accuses Kyiv of intentionally overshadowing the “historic moment”.
On the day of Russia’s declared annexation of four occupied Ukrainian territories, Russian soldiers are “partially surrounded” in the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman, according to pro-Russian Donetsk separatist leader Denis Pushilin. The news from Lyman was “disturbing,” he said in online networks. “We have to hold out, but the enemy has deployed heavy forces,” he added.
“Right now, Lyman is in a hemisphere, the road to Swatowe is under our control but is periodically under fire,” wrote the 41-year-old, who is currently taking part in the annexation celebrations in Moscow, on the Telegram news service. The nearby towns of Jampil and Drobyschewe are “not completely under our control,” Puschilin continued.
Ukrainian sources showed a video of a Ukrainian soldier at an administrative building in Yampil saying “Jampil is ours”. A Ukrainian unit engaged in the battle for Lyman, the 66th Mechanized Brigade, reported on Facebook that it had taken Shchurove, five kilometers southwest of the city. Previously, Russian military bloggers had reported on the de facto encirclement of the Russian group at Lyman.
The city of Lyman is an important railway junction in the north of the Donetsk region. Donetsk is one of the four Ukrainian regions that Russian President Putin formally annexed in the afternoon in Moscow, although the Russian military only has military control over parts of it.
With a view to the pompous celebrations scheduled for the annexation of the occupied Ukrainian regions in Moscow in the evening, separatist leader Pushilin explained that the Ukrainian forces were “trying with all their might to cast a shadow over what is, for us, a historic event”.
The government in Kyiv initially did not comment on the war in Lyman. With a view to a further advance of the Ukrainian troops, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated in a long speech on state television: “We will defend our country with all means.”
