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Ukraine retakes a city Putin claimed to have annexed: Why it matters
Ukraine said it had taken back full control of Lyman on Sunday, handing Russian President Vladimir Putin another setback after he claimed to have annexed the area.
International
Ukraine said it had retaken full control of a key eastern city on Sunday, handing the Kremlin another stinging setback just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed that the area would belong to his country forever.
The recapture of Lyman represents a symbolic and strategic victory for Kyiv, which vowed its forces would push deeper into occupied territory after forcing Moscow's military into its latest bloody and humiliating retreat. Western officials and observers said Russia’s loss of a logistics hub key to the supply of forces in the south and east was a significant development that could pave the way for more.
"Lyman is cleared fully," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced early Sunday, hours after Russia's Defense Ministry said it was withdrawing its troops to more favorable defensive positions after facing likely encirclement.
“Over the past week, the number of Ukrainian flags in Donbas has increased. There will be even more in a week’s time,” Zelenskyy said on Saturday in an evening address.
Lyman is in the Donetsk region, which together with neighboring Luhansk makes up Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas. Putin illegally claimed the areas, as well as the partially occupied southern regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, at a grand Kremlin ceremony on Friday that drew global condemnation.
His military's fragile grip on that supposedly annexed territory and Moscow's increasing nuclear threats have stoked fears of escalation beyond Putin's move to call up military reservists.
Putin under pressure
The setback comes at a delicate time for Putin domestically.
While his annexation ceremony was accompanied by patriotic rallies and bullish talk of victory, the Russian leader stoked unease and an exodus of men fearing conscription after he called up hundreds of thousands to join the fight.
A new poll released Thursday by the independent Levada Center found that a growing number of Russians said they did not believe the Kremlin's "special military operation" was proceeding successfully. It also found that more than half of the 1600 respondents felt anxious or angry about the partial mobilization.
The loss of Lyman marks the biggest battlefield shift since a lightning Ukrainian counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region last month that turned the tide of the seven-month conflict.
It sparked a new wave of criticism from pro-military voices online that illustrated the way in which Ukraine's military was now driving the war's direction despite the Kremlin's high-profile efforts to regain the initiative.
Infuriated Putin allies such as Ramzan Kadyrov who leads the southern region of Chechnya, demanded a change of strategy in the wake of Saturday's retreat. He called for “more drastic measures,” that could even include "the use of low-yield nuclear weapons" — the most explicit call for such an escalation from a top official.