Kyiv, Ukraine –
Russia attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown and other targets with suicide drones on Sunday, and Ukraine regained full control of a strategic eastern city in a counteroffensive that reshaped the war.
Russia’s loss of Lyman, which it used as a transport and logistics hub, is yet another blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine and stepping up its threats to use nuclear force. Ukraine’s recent gains have embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin and drawn rare domestic criticism.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that his forces now have control of Lyman, after the Russian military announced its withdrawal on Saturday.
“As of 12:30 p.m. (09:30 GMT), Lyman is completely clear. Thank you to our military, our warriors,” Zelenskyy said in a video address.
In southern Ukraine, Zelenskyy’s hometown of Krivyi Rih was attacked by Russia by a suicide drone that hit a school early on Sunday and destroyed two floors of it, said Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the region. Ukrainian from Dnipropetrovsk.
In recent weeks, Russia has begun using Iranian-made suicide drones to attack targets in Ukraine. In southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Air Force said on Sunday it shot down five Iranian-made drones overnight, while two others managed to break through air defenses.
Meanwhile, Russian attacks have also targeted the city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday. And Ukraine’s military said on Sunday it had carried out strikes against several Russian command posts, ammunition depots and two S-300 anti-aircraft batteries.
Military activity reports could not be immediately verified.
Ukrainian forces have taken over swathes of territory, notably in the northeast around Kharkiv, during a counter-offensive in recent weeks.
In the latest major development, Ukrainian forces surrounded Russian troops holding the center of Lyman to the east, forcing the Russians to withdraw in what the British military described as a “significant political setback” for Moscow. Taking the city clears the way for Ukrainian troops to potentially push further into Russian-occupied territory.
Lyman had been an important link in the Russian front line for ground communications and logistics. Lyman is in the Donetsk region near the border with Luhansk, two of four regions Russia illegally annexed on Friday after forcing people to vote in referendums at gunpoint.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have inflicted damage on Ukrainian forces struggling to hold Lyman, but said the outnumbered Russian troops had been withdrawn to more favorable positions.
In his Saturday evening speech, Zelenskyy said: “Over the past week, there have been more Ukrainian flags in Donbass. In a week there will be even more.
In a daily intelligence briefing, the British Ministry of Defense called Lyman crucial because it has “a key route across the Siversky Donets River, behind which Russia has tried to shore up its defences.”
The British said they believed the city had been held by “understrength elements” before the Russian withdrawal, prompting immediate criticism from some Russian officials.
“Further losses of territory in illegally occupied territories will almost certainly lead to an intensification of this public criticism and increase pressure on senior commanders,” the UK military briefing said.
The Russian withdrawal from northeastern Ukraine in recent weeks has revealed evidence of widespread and routine torture of civilians and soldiers, including in the strategic town of Izium, according to an Associated Press investigation.
AP reporters located 10 torture sites in the Ukrainian city, including a deep sunless pit in a residential complex, a clammy underground prison that reeked of urine, a medical clinic and a kindergarten.
Russian officials are releasing limited information about military activity in what the Kremlin still refuses to call a war. Putin presents the Ukrainian gains as a US-orchestrated effort to destroy Russia, and last week he escalated threats of nuclear force in some of his toughest, most anti-Western rhetoric yet. .
Pope Francis on Sunday denounced nuclear threats and called on Putin to stop “this spiral of violence and death”.
Meanwhile, international concerns are growing over the fate of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant after Russian forces arrest its director.
The International Atomic Energy Agency announced on Sunday that its director general, Rafael Grossi, would travel to Kyiv and Moscow in the coming days to discuss the situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Grossi continues to push for “a nuclear safety and security zone” around the site.
The plant is in a Russian-controlled area of Ukraine and one of four regions that Moscow illegally annexed on Friday, and has repeatedly been caught in the crossfire of war. Ukrainian technicians continued to operate the power plant after Russian troops seized it, and its last reactor was shut down in September as a precaution.