Live: Ukraine forces enter Lyman, Zelensky vows to recapture other towns

Issued on: 02/10/2022 – 09:13

8:58am: Ukraine celebrates recapturing key town

Ukrainian troops said they had retaken the key bastion of Lyman in occupied eastern Ukraine, a stinging defeat that prompted a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin to call for the possible use of low-grade nuclear weapons.

The capture on Saturday came just a day after Putin proclaimed the annexation of nearly a fifth of Ukraine —including Donetsk, where Lyman is located — and placed the regions under Russia’s nuclear umbrella. Kyiv and the West condemned the ornate ceremony as an illegitimate farce.

Ukrainian soldiers announced the capture in a video recorded outside the town council building in the centre of Lyman and posted on social media.

“Dear Ukrainians — today the armed forces of Ukraine … liberated and took control of the settlement of Lyman, Donetsk region,” one of the soldiers says. At the end of the video, a group of soldiers cheer and throw Russian flags down from the building’s roof and raise a Ukrainian flag in their place.

Hours earlier, Russia’s defence ministry had announced it was pulling troops out of the area “in connection with the creation of a threat of encirclement”.

Lyman had fallen in May to Russian forces, which had used it as a logistics and transport hub for its operations in the north of the Donetsk region. Its capture is Ukraine’s biggest battlefield gain since the lightning counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region last month.

October 1, 2022

10:00pm: Germany to deliver advanced air defence system to Ukraine

Germany will deliver the first of four advanced IRIS-T air defence systems to Ukraine in the coming days to help ward off drone attacks, its Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht said during an unannounced visit to Odesa on Saturday.

As air raid sirens sounded in the port city above, Lambrecht held talks with her Ukrainian counterpart Oleksii Reznikov in an underground bunker. Lambrecht had extended a visit to nearby Moldova for the meeting

8:30pm: Zelensky says fighting ‘still going on’ in key Donetsk town of Lyman

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday said fighting was continuing in the key town of Lyman, which Russia said earlier in the day its troops had abandoned to avoid being trapped.

“The Ukrainian flag is already in Lyman in the Donetsk region. Fighting is still going on there,” Zelensky said in a late night video address.

5:46pm: Chechnya’s Kadyrov calls for Moscow to use ‘low-yield nuclear weapon’ after loss of Lyman

Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Russia’s region of Chechnya, said on Saturday that Moscow should consider using a low-yield nuclear weapon in Ukraine after a major new defeat on the battlefield.

As Russia confirmed the loss of its stronghold of Lyman in eastern Ukraine, Kadyrov wrote on Telegram: “In my personal opinion, more drastic measures should be taken, right up to the declaration of martial law in the border areas and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons.”

Other top Putin allies, including former president Dmitry Medvedev, have suggested that Russia may need to resort to nuclear weapons, but Kadyrov’s call was the most urgent and explicit.

He was speaking a day after President Vladimir Putin proclaimed the annexation of four Ukrainian regions – including Donetsk, where Lyman is located – and placed them under Russia’s nuclear umbrella, saying Moscow would defend the lands it had seized “with all our strength and all our means”.

Russia’s defence ministry on Saturday announced a withdrawal from Lyman, a major stronghold and logistical hub for its forces in Donetsk, saying that a Ukrainian advance had threatened its units with encirclement.

It was the latest in a series of battlefield losses for Russia, after its forces were routed from Kharkiv region by a lightning Ukrainian counteroffensive last month.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP & Reuters)