Ukraine, army towards Lyman: turning point in Donetsk, the scenario

Kiev’s military forces have advanced decisively towards Lyman, a crucial hub in the Donetsk region. The city is fundamental in the framework of the war between Ukraine and Russia: Lyman is decisive in the chessboard of the region that Russian President Vladimir Putin will annex to the Russian Federation today, together with those of Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The Ukrainian military has captured several locations east of the town where there is an important railway junction, as the pro-Russians have admitted. So much so that “around midnight the Ukrainian forces managed to surround Lyman”, as reported on the pro-Russian military blog Rybar. The pro-Russian leader of the region, Denis Pushilin, from Moscow, where he is for the signing ceremony of the annexation agreements, admitted that Lyman is “semi-surrounded”. The village of Stavky in the north has fallen, and in Zarichne in the east, there is street-to-street fighting. The only road to supply the Russian and pro-Russian forces occupying the town, the one to Torske, is under enemy fire. Also under attack is Jampil, to the southeast. The Ukrainians have just claimed their release, Lyman is compared to Balakliya, the town in the Kharkiv region where the decisive breakthrough of Ukrainian forces took place. If it falls, it opens the way for the reconquest of land in the Luhansk region. In a race against time to mark the new situation on the ground before the formalization of the annexation of the regions by Moscow which will not take place before Tuesday, when the Federation Council will have ratified the agreements signed today by Putin, or in any case to ruin the Russian feast of annexation.