The battle for the strategically important city of Lyman seems almost decided: According to Ukrainian information, their own troops are standing on the city limits, while thousands of Russian soldiers can hardly escape. The head of administration for Luhansk is sending them a clear message.
According to the Ukrainian troops, around 5,000 Russian soldiers have been surrounded in the strategically important city of Lyman in the Donetsk region. That was the status in the morning, said the Ukrainian head of administration for Luhansk, Serhiy Hajdaj. "The occupiers asked their leaders to come out if they could, and they were rebuffed," he said.
Hajdaj gave the soldiers a choice. There are "three options for action: either they can try to break out or they surrender, or they all die together." A total of up to 5,500 soldiers are stationed in the city, but the number still present there is unclear. "Some are surrendering, there are many dead and wounded, but the mission is not over yet."
Hajdaj said there had never been such a number of encircled Russians in the war. Almost all entrances are blocked. Western military experts assume that Lyman will be completely freed in the next few days. For the army of Russian President Vladimir Putin, this would be another massive defeat in the invasion that has been going on for more than seven months.
The Ukrainian data can hardly be verified independently. However, the first videos of Ukrainian soldiers on the outskirts of Lyman have already been circulating on social media. The Kremlin has not yet commented. Russia took Lyman in May and has since expanded it into a military center. Before the war, 20,000 people lived there.
"Lyman is important because it is the next step in liberating Ukraine's Donbass," said a Ukrainian spokesman. "It's an opportunity to move on to Kreminna and Siewierodonetsk and it's very important psychologically." Parts of the areas have been controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014.
