Soldiers of the Russian Federation! The Ukrainian armed forces have captured Lyman. Further resistance is useless, you are surrounded.’ The call to surrender is blared through a loudspeaker across the battlefield, according to a video released by the Ukrainian army on Saturday. There is only one way to survive, the Russian soldiers are told, and that is to lay down their weapons and stand with their hands up at the side of the road.
The Russian army has suffered another heavy defeat in Ukraine. Reports from the Ukrainian military, Russian military bloggers and Russian-appointed administrators pointed in the same direction shortly after Putin’s triumphant annexation ceremony on Friday: Lyman, a city of strategic importance to the Russian invasion of Donetsk province, was about to be recaptured by Ukraine. Saturday was the day. The Russian Defense Ministry reported “withdrawal” from Lyman “due to danger of encirclement.”
The Ukrainian recapture of Lyman shows that President Putin is failing to change the balance of power on the battlefield in the short term with mobilization and annexations. A few hours after the declaration of four provinces as Russian territory, he has again lost strategic ground.
The fall of Lyman is a bloodletting loss for the Russian army. That used the town (20 thousand inhabitants at the start of the Russian invasion) as a logistics link for operations in the north of the Donetsk province. To make matters worse, the capture of Lyman gives the Ukrainian army new opportunities to attack Russian positions in the Luhansk province.
On Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff distributed a video of Ukrainian military personnel at a Lyman town sign on the outskirts of the city. The army command stated that Russia had stationed 5 to 5.5 thousand soldiers in the Lyman. It is unclear how many Russian soldiers survived escape attempts on a road to the east: the road has been heavily shelled by Ukrainian artillery.
Bloggers are furious
The staged party mood in Moscow from the day before – thousands of people gathered for a patriotic concert celebrating the annexations on Friday evening – has completely changed. Russian military bloggers reacted furiously to the defeat shortly after Putin’s annexation. “We have now lost not just a city to the enemy, but a Russian city,” said Military Informant, a pro-Russian Telegram channel with half a million followers. Another channel, Gray Zone, cynically lashed out at the leadership of “the depraved military system” in Russia. “Russian boys are becoming heroes not because they are engaged in reconquest, but because they survive situations in which they end up by the brave command.”
According to Russian tradition, the head of state, Vladimir Putin, is spared criticism. Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov blamed a commander and called for more drastic measures, including the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
The Ukrainian army calls Lyman a springboard from Donetsk province to Luhansk province. An army spokesman said on Saturday that armed forces are now gaining visibility on the liberation of Severodonetsk, the city Ukraine lost in June after pulverizing artillery shelling by Russia.
Hurry up for winter
Ukraine is trying to use the momentum to regain as much ground as possible for the winter. Rain and mud make it difficult to advance with heavy equipment. Moreover, the Russian army can hardly benefit from the mobilization that Putin has introduced.
Russia is trying to strike back at other places along the front. It made new attempts to advance towards the city of Bachmoet, but did not come any closer, according to the Ukrainian army. Other ground attacks in Donetsk province also seem to have yielded no territorial gains.
Russia, however, bit off in a different way. The Ukrainian manager of the occupied nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhya province reported that Russian soldiers blindfolded and kidnapped the Ukrainian director of the plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees the plant, confirms that Russia has detained the director. Another Russian attack targeted a humanitarian convoy. At least 20 civilians were killed, the Ukrainian authorities said.
