A day after the Kremlin declared the area to be a part of Russia, Ukraine claimed on Saturday that it has encircled thousands of Russian troops around the eastern town of Lyman.
After President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of the Donetsk region, along with three others, at a ceremony in Moscow on Friday that Kyiv and the West denounced as a sham, the conquest of Lyman would be a significant setback for Russia.
According to a representative for Ukraine’s eastern military, Russia has between 5,000 and 5,500 troops in Lyman, although due to fatalities and men trying to escape unsuccessfully, their numbers may be lower.
The spokesperson, Serhii Cherevatyi, declared on television that “the Russian grouping in the vicinity of Lyman is surrounded.”
An inquiry for comment was not immediately answered by the Russian Defense Ministry.
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Lyman has served as a supply and transportation hub for Russia’s actions in the Donetsk region’s north. If it were to fall, it would be Ukraine’s biggest battlefield victory since a quick counteroffensive in last month’s northeastern Kharkiv region.
Lyman’s seizure, according to the military spokesman for Ukraine, would enable Kiev to march into the Luhansk area, whose full surrender Moscow claimed at the start of July after weeks of plodding, slow gains.
“Lyman is significant because it is the next step towards releasing the Ukrainian Donbas. It is a chance to continue on to Kreminna and Sievierodonetsk, and it is crucial psychologically “explained he.
According to Cherevatyi, the effort to encircle Lyman is still ongoing, and Russian troops are making vain attempts to escape.
The operation is still ongoing, despite the fact that some soldiers are turning themselves in, he said.
Russian soldiers requested safe passage out of the encirclement, according to the exiled governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, but Ukraine denied the request.
According to Reuters, the Ukrainian General Staff was unaware of such intelligence.
In a ceremony on Friday, Putin declared the southern districts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia and the Donbas areas of Donetsk and Luhansk to be Russian territory. Together, these regions make up nearly 18% of Ukraine’s total surface land area.
Russia’s action was condemned as illegitimate by Ukraine and its Western allies. Kiev vowed to keep ridding its territory of Russian forces and declared that it would not engage in peace negotiations with Moscow as long as Putin was in office.
