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| Ukrainian troops pose for a photo after they seized back control of Lyman |
Kiev - Ukrainian troops claim that they have captured the main stronghold of Lyman in occupied eastern Ukraine, Saturday (1/10/2022). It was a bitter defeat that prompted close allies of President Vladimir Putin to call for the possible use of low-level nuclear weapons.
Ukrainian soldiers made the claim in a video recorded outside the city council building in central Lyman and posted on social media by Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office.
"Dear Ukraine - today the Ukrainian Armed Forces liberated and captured the settlement of Lyman, Donetsk region," said one of the soldiers, as quoted by Reuters. At the end of the video, a group of Ukrainian soldiers throw the Russian flag from the roof of the building and raise the Ukrainian flag in their place.
Hours earlier the Russian defense ministry had announced it would withdraw troops from the area "in connection with the creation of a siege threat". Russia has used Lyman as a logistics and transportation hub for its operations in the northern Donetsk region.
His capture is Ukraine's biggest battlefield gain since a swift counter-offensive in the northeastern region of Kharkiv last month. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky promised faster success in the Donbas, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions largely under Russian control. "Over the past week, the number of Ukrainian flags in the Donbas has increased. There will be more times of the week," he said in an evening video address.
He also pointed out that Ukrainian troops had captured the village of Torske, on the main road out of Lyman to the east. Read: Russian troops withdrew from an important city in Donbass, what happened? Recent successes have angered Putin allies such as Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of Russia's southern Chechnya region, who says he feels compelled to speak out.
"In my personal opinion, more drastic measures should be taken, up to the declaration of martial law in border areas and the use of low-power nuclear weapons," Kadyrov wrote on Telegram before Zelensky spoke. Other top officials, including former president Dmitry Medvedev, have suggested Russia may need to use nuclear weapons, but Kadyrov's call was the most pressing and explicit.