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| Photo Credit: AP. |
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — After being encircled by Ukrainian forces, Russia pulled troops out Saturday from an eastern Ukrainian city that it had been using as a front-line hub. It was the latest victory for the Ukrainian counteroffensive that has humiliated and angered the Kremlin.
Russia’s
withdrawal from Lyman complicates its internationally vilified declaration just
a day earlier that it had annexed four regions of Ukraine — an area that
includes Lyman. Taking the city paves the way for Ukrainian troops to
potentially push further into land that Moscow now illegally claims as its own.
The fighting
comes at a pivotal moment in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war. Facing
Ukrainian gains on the battlefield — which he frames as a U.S.-orchestrated
effort to destroy Russia — Putin this week heightened threats of nuclear force
and used his most aggressive, anti-Western rhetoric to date.
Russia’s
Defense Ministry claimed to have inflicted damage on Ukrainian forces in battling
to hold Lyman, but said outnumbered Russian troops were withdrawn to more
favorable positions. Kyiv’s air force said it moved into Lyman, and the
Ukrainian president’s chief of staff posted photos of a Ukrainian flag being
hoisted on the town’s outskirts.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE
WAR
Lyman had
been an important link in the Russian front line for both ground communications
and logistics. Located 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Kharkiv,
Ukraine’s second-largest city, it is in the Donetsk region near the border with
Luhansk region, both of which Russia annexed Friday after a local “referendum”
was held at gunpoint.
Ukrainian
forces have retaken vast swaths of territory in a counteroffensive that started
in September. They have pushed Russian forces out of the Kharkiv area and moved
east across the Oskil River.
Moscow’s
withdrawal from Lyman prompted immediate criticism from some Russian officials.
The leader
of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, blamed the retreat, without evidence, on one
general being “covered up for by higher-up leaders in the General Staff.” He
called for “more drastic measures.”
Meanwhile,
on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula, the governor of the city of
Sevastopol announced an emergency situation at an airfield there. Explosions
and huge billows of smoke could be seen from a distance by beachgoers in the
Russian-held resort. Authorities said a plane rolled off the runway at the Belbek
airfield and ammunition that was reportedly on board caught fire.
Russia
annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 in violation of
international law.
Russian
bombardments have intensified in recent days as Moscow moved swiftly with its
latest annexation and ordered a mass mobilization at home to bolster its
forces. The Russian call-up has proven unpopular at home, prompting tens of
thousands of Russian men to flee the country.
Ukraine’s
president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and his military have vowed to keep fighting to
liberate the regions Putin claimed to have annexed Friday, and other
Russian-occupied areas.
Ukrainian
authorities accused Russian forces of targeting two humanitarian convoys in
recent days, killing dozens of civilians.
The governor
of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, said 24 civilians were killed in an
attack this week on a convoy trying to flee the Kupiansk district. He called it
“сruelty that can’t be justified.” He said 13 children and a pregnant woman
were among the dead.
“The
Russians fired at civilians almost at point-blank range,” Syniehubov wrote on
Telegram.
The Security
Service of Ukraine, the secret police force known by the acronym SBU, posted
photographs of the attacked convoy. At least one truck appeared to have been
blown up, with burned corpses in what remained of its truck bed. Another
vehicle at the front of the convoy also had been ablaze. Bodies lay on the side
of the road or still inside vehicles, which appeared pockmarked with bullet
holes.
Russia’s
Defense Ministry said its rockets destroyed Ukrainian military targets in the
area but has not commented on accusations that it targeted fleeing civilians.
Russian troops have retreated from much of the Kharkiv region but they have
continued to shell the area.
And a
Russian strike in the Zaporizhzhia region’s capital killed 30 people and
wounded 88, Ukrainian officials said. The British Defense Ministry said the
Russians “almost certainly” struck a humanitarian convoy there with S-300
anti-aircraft missiles. Russian-installed officials in Zaporizhzhia blamed
Ukrainian forces, but gave no evidence.
In other
developments, in an apparent attempt to secure Moscow’s hold on the newly
annexed territory, Russian forces seized the director-general of the
Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Ihor Murashov, on Friday, according to the
Ukrainian state nuclear company Energoatom.
Energoatom
said Russian troops stopped Murashov’s car, blindfolded him and took him to an
undisclosed location.
Russia did
not publicly comment on the report. The International Atomic Energy Agency said
Russia told it that “the director-general of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power
plant was temporarily detained to answer questions.”
The
Vienna-based IAEA said it “has been actively seeking clarifications and hopes
for a prompt and satisfactory resolution of this matter.”
The power
plant repeatedly has been caught in the crossfire of the war. Ukrainian
technicians continued running it after Russian troops seized the power station,
and its last reactor was shut down in September as a precautionary measure amid
ongoing shelling nearby.
In other
fighting reported Saturday, four people were killed by Russian shelling Friday
in the Donetsk region, governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said. The Russian army struck
the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv twice overnight, once with drones and
the second time with missiles, according to regional Gov. Vitaliy Kim.
After
Friday’s land grab, Russia now claims sovereignty over 15% of Ukraine, in what
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called “the largest attempted
annexation of European territory by force since the Second World War.”
Zelenskyy on
Friday formally applied for NATO membership, upping the pressure on Western
allies to defend Ukraine.
In Washington,
President Joe Biden signed a bill Friday that provides another infusion — more
than $12.3 billion — in military and economic aid linked to the war Ukraine.
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coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine