Ukrainian soldiers claim this Saturday to have surrounded several thousand Russian soldiers east of Lyman, a symbol of Russian occupation at the beginning of the conflict, and to have entered the city.
“It is a defeat for the Russian army,” said General Jérôme Pellistrandi, defense consultant for BFMTV, for whom this fence “translates well this offensive dynamic now on Lyman’s side.”
“Ukrainian air assault forces are entering Lyman, Donetsk region,” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry announced on Twitter on Saturday.
A “strategic crossroads”
Why is this particular Ukrainian city an important stronghold for the Kyiv forces? According to the consultant, it is crucial because “the city of Lyman was a strategic and logistical crossroads for the Russian forces towards the Donbass”.
“We must remember that the distances are very important, so we use the railway. We need regrouping points and Lyman was one of these important logistics sites for the support of the Russian forces,” he explains on Saturday.
The city was a “very important railway node for the logistics of the Russian forces,” he sums up.
a new dynamic
More generally, the capture of this city allows Kyiv, after two weeks of measured progress, to show a new positive dynamic, hoping to mark a turning point in the conflict.
“It is a way of putting pressure not only on Donetsk, but also on Lugansk, to show that nothing is fixed and that the Ukrainians are capable of dealing blows and disorganizing the Russians”, develops General Jean-Paul Paloméros, former Chief of Staff . air force personnel and former NATO Supreme Commander on the microphone of BFMTV.
In the early hours of this Saturday, the Ukrainian army claimed to have “surrounded” several thousand Russian soldiers in this city in the Donetsk region, annexed this Friday by Russia. According to a spokesman, “between 5,000 and 5,500 Russians” had barricaded themselves in and around Lyman in recent days.
Moscow minimizes this new failure
On the Moscow side, the loss of Lyman “translates the disorganization to the defeat of the Russian forces in this region”, emphasizes Jérôme Pellistrandi.
Therefore, the Kremlin minimizes, as expected, this failure by assuring this Saturday that it had “withdrew” from the city, as if it were a “voluntary act”, underlines General Pellistrandi.
“This withdrawal allows them to escape perhaps the capture of a hundred prisoners,” our Defense consultant also estimates.
The announcement is no small task for the Russian forces, when they were still demanding the annexation of four new Ukrainian territories, including Lyman, on Friday. The contrast is striking between Vladimir Putin’s victorious remarks in Red Square on Friday.
“On the ground, the reality is quite different,” says Jérôme Pellistrandi.
Source: BFM TV
