Ukrainian troops liberate Donetsk city annexed by Russia one day earlier
Ukraine on Saturday released video that showed Ukrainian forces declaring they had taken control of the key town of Lyman in Donetsk region which Russia said earlier its soldiers had abandoned.
"Dear Ukrainians – today the armed forces of Ukraine ... liberated and took control of the settlement of Lyman, Donetsk region," one of the soldiers said in the video posted by 81st Airborne Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
At the end of the video, Ukrainian soldiers throw Russian flags down from the building's roof and raise a Ukrainian flag in their place.
The video was also shared by Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior aide to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and by Ukraine's Ministry of Defence.
At the end of the video, a group of Ukrainian soldiers throw Russian flags down from the building's roof and raise a Ukrainian flag in their place.
The location of the video was verified by the building and trees which matched satellite and street view imagery. Reuters could not independently verify the date the video was filmed.
Earlier on Saturday, Zelenskiy said in a video address that although the Ukrainian flag was flying in the city, "fighting is still going on there".
US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin on Saturday speaking in Hawaii said he was "encouraged" as Ukrainian troops said they had taken the key bastion of Lyman in occupied eastern Ukraine, a stinging defeat that prompted a close ally of President Vladimir Putin to call for the possible use of low-grade nuclear weapons.
"We are very encouraged by what we are seeing right now," Austin said.
"Lyman sits astride the supply lines of the Russians. And they have used those routes to push men and material down to the south and the west. And without those routes, it will be more difficult, so it presents a sort of a dilemma for the Russians going forward," Austin said.
The capture came just a day after Putin proclaimed the annexation of four Ukrainian regions – including Donetsk, where Lyman is located – and placed them under Russia's nuclear umbrella, at a ceremony that was condemned by Kyiv and the West as an illegitimate farce.
Hours earlier Russia's defence ministry had announced it was pulling troops out of the area "in connection with the creation of a threat of encirclement”.
Russia had used Lyman as a logistics and transport hub for its operations in the north of the Donetsk region. Its capture is Ukraine's biggest battlefield gain since a lightning counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region last month.
Reuters
