The eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman is strategically particularly important. Now the pro-Russian separatists are declaring that they have "complete" control over them. Taking the city could also have consequences for the defense of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
Pro-Russian separatists have declared their capture of the strategically important city of Lyman in eastern Ukraine. With the support of the Russian armed forces, they had "gained complete control" over Lyman, the general staff of the separatists in the Donetsk region told Telegram. Overall, the separatists "liberated 220 towns". Lyman is an important railway junction northeast of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
The capture of Lyman would allow a Russian advance on the two cities still under Ukrainian control. Ukraine recaptured Sloviansk from the separatists in 2014. Kramatorsk is the capital of the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk region.
Russia and Ukraine did not comment on the reported intake. An independent verification was not possible. The separatists had already reported on Tuesday that they controlled half of the city.
According to a local politician, dozens more bodies of residents were found in the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, which has now been taken by Russian troops. Rescue workers discovered a total of around 70 lifeless bodies on a former factory site, Mariupol city council deputy Petro Andryushchenko wrote on Telegram. People were buried under the rubble when Russian occupiers shelled the building, he wrote.
Besieged by Russian troops for weeks and eventually captured, Mariupol has become an international symbol of the brutality of Russia's war of aggression. In the weeks after the start of the war, attacks on a maternity clinic and a theater that civilians used as an air raid shelter caused particular horror.
Later, for weeks, Russian and pro-Russian soldiers besieged the Azovstal steelworks, where the last Ukrainian defenders were holed up. More than a week ago, more than 2,400 men and women surrendered. You are now in Russian captivity.
