The Russian military confirmed on Saturday that it now controls the strategic city of Lyman in eastern Ukraine, as Moscow’s assault on the Donbas region continues.
Lyman, a town of 20,000, is located on the road to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, two of the main settlements in Donbas that are not yet under Russian control.
“The city of Krasny Liman has been completely liberated from Ukrainian nationalists,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, using the city’s former name.
Ukraine is behind the Donbass, the country’s industrial heartland where Russian-backed forces occupied the territory eight years ago and which has now become the center of Ukraine’s invasion of Moscow after failed attempts to take the major cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv. .
In his daily video address on Friday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the Russians had “maximum concentrated artillery, maximum reserves in the Donbas,” making life difficult for the Ukrainian army. .
“There are missile attacks and plane attacks, everything,” Zelenskiy said.
Attention this week has focused on the city of Sievierodonetsk, which if captured would give Russia control of the entire Lugansk region. The city has been under heavy artillery and missile bombardment all week, and the Russians have taken control of the Myr Hotel on the outskirts of the city.
On Saturday morning, Luhansk Regional Governor Serhiy Haidai said that so far the Russians had been unable to advance beyond the hotel.
“We have not been able to get them out of there yet, despite their losses. But they are also not able to move forward. Their tactics are always the same: a few hours of bombing, and then they try to move forward, “he wrote.
Ukraine’s defense minister said foreign military deliveries were helping Ukrainian forces on the front lines, noting three systems that were now in active use against the Russians: M777 and FH70 shells, as well as Caesar self-propelled artillery. . He also said that the US M109 howitzer systems had arrived in Ukraine.
“It would have been impossible to imagine that in March. But today it is a reality,” Oleksii Reznikov wrote on Facebook.
At the same time, Ukrainian officials continue to demand more arms deliveries from the west, saying they run the risk of being overrun in Donbas and need deliveries urgently.
Washington has reported that the Pentagon may be preparing to send advanced long-range rocket systems to Ukraine to aid its battle in the Donbas, something the Ukrainian military and political leaders have been calling for for months.
Meanwhile, Russian forces also conducted a demonstration test of a new hypersonic missile on Saturday. The Zircon missile, which was first tested in late 2020, was fired from a frigate in the Barents Sea and hit a target in the Arctic White Sea at 625 miles away. say the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Zircon can reach speeds of up to 10 times the speed of sound and fly at low altitudes, making it harder to intercept.
Also on Saturday, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he was banned from leaving the country, accusing Zelensky of breaking a “political ceasefire” in place since the start of the war. Poroshenko was to travel to a meeting of the NATO parliamentary assembly in Vilnius.
Zelensky defeated Poroshenko in the 2019 elections, and before the war began, prosecutors were investigating Poroshenko for his involvement in an allegedly corrupt coal export scheme. Many observers suggested that the charges were politically motivated.
Following the outbreak of war, the Ukrainian authorities suspended the activities of a number of pro-Russian political parties, but others were able to continue, including Poroshenko’s European Solidarity Party. Despite the long-standing bitterness between Zelensky and Poroshenko, both seemed to put aside their fights to focus on Russia’s threat.
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“There is a risk that with this decision, the authorities will have broken the ‘political ceasefire’ in force during the war … which is one of the pillars of national unity in the face of Russian aggression,” the office said. of Poroshenko in a statement.