Satellite images show how the city of Lyman in eastern Ukraine was bombed by missile and aircraft attacks before it was captured on Saturday.
Updated less than 10 minutes ago
–
Saturday morning, a little over eleven Norwegian time, Russian forces confirmed that they had taken control of the Ukrainian city of Lyman.
– The city of Krasny Liman has been completely liberated from Ukrainian nationalists, said Russia’s Defense Ministry in a statement with the city’s old name, writes The Guardian.
NTB writes that the Ukrainian General Staff has also confirmed that Russian-backed separatists now control the city.
Newly released satellite images from the US company Maxar Technologies show how the Russian military made the forces ready earlier this week and what damage the Russian attacks have done to the city:
1 / 3
–
–
––
–
The city is described as strategically important for Ukraine because it provides access to important railway and road bridges over the Siversky Donets River. Lyman, which has about 20,000 inhabitants, is also located along the road to two large cities over which Russia has not taken control.
“The fall of Lyman could ease a Russian advance on Slovyansk, a Ukrainian railway hub, from the northeast,” Mason Clark, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told The Washington Post.
Lyman and Popasna are located north and south of Sevierodonetsk, respectively, an eastern Ukrainian city with a population of about 100,000 before the war, and which has been subjected to violent Russian attacks.
In his daily video speech on Friday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the Russians had “concentrated maximum artillery, maximum reserves in the Donbas”, which made life very difficult for the Ukrainian army.
– There are missile attacks and aircraft attacks – everything, said Zelenskyj, writes The Guardian.
VG has previously written about how Ukraine may have to withdraw forces from the Luhansk region east of the country as a result of the Russians taking over more territory
–
