As Moscow rigged votes to annex occupied Ukrainian territories, Kremlin forces continued to lose ground in the east. The Lyman transport hub in Donetsk is almost encircled, alarmed Russian military bloggers report.
In the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, Russian troops are apparently threatened with encirclement by the Ukrainian army. Russian war reporters reported in the afternoon on successful Ukrainian advances north-east and east of the small town of Lyman. Should the settlement of Torske be recaptured, the Russians are threatened with cutting off the communication routes from Lyman to Kreminna and Swatowe in the Luhansk region. The streets are already under fire from Ukrainian artillery.
Militarily, the small town of Lyman is of great importance to the Russian armed forces. Lyman, captured by Kremlin troops at the end of May, is a major road and rail transport hub. The supplies that the troops need throughout eastern Ukraine are handled here.
According to Ukrainian sources, at least one other place on the east side of the Oskil River near the city of Kupjansk in the Kharkiv region, Kivscharivka, has been recaptured. It was only on Tuesday that there were reports of further Ukrainian advances on the Oskil shore. The Pisky-Radkivsky settlement is again under Ukrainian control, the administration of the Borova municipality informed Telegram. In addition, photos of destroyed Russian technology were shown. Before the Russian invasion on February 24, the settlement had about 2000 inhabitants.
After being expelled from most of the Kharkiv region in early September, Russian troops retreated behind the line of the Oskil and Siverskyi Donets rivers. However, they could not hold this line. Ukrainian units are also said to have had successes in the Donetsk region bordering to the south and have approached the Luhansk region to within a few kilometers.
The Ukrainian moves come at the same time as Russia hastily held mock referendums in the occupied territories to prepare for Russia's swift annexation of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts next week. Moscow does not fully control any of the areas. In the case of the Donetsk region, for example, it is only a good half of the territory.
Despite recent military setbacks, the Kremlin announced that Russia would continue the war in Ukraine until the entire Donetsk region was conquered. That is the minimum goal, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. "You know that not the entire territory of the Donetsk People's Republic has been liberated," Peskov said, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. "Therefore, as a minimum, we must liberate the entire territory of the Donetsk People's Republic." The Russian Ministry of Defense had admitted that progress there was much slower than planned.
