KYIV: Ukrainian forces recaptured the key eastern city of Lyman, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, sending Russian soldiers fleeing the area a day after Moscow annexed the region, along with three other territories in eastern and southeastern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Saturday its forces were “entering Lyman.”
“Ukrainian Air Assault Forces are entering Lyman, Donetsk region,” the ministry said on Twitter.

Hours later, Russia’s defense ministry issued a statement saying its troops had pulled out of the city.

Video posted on social media Saturday showed Ukrainian soldiers on the outskirts of the city waving a flag, with one soldier saying, “Lyman will be Ukraine.”

The city, which sits on the banks of the Siversky Donets River, fell to the Russians in May.

Since then, its railroad hub has been used by Russia as a key logistical area to support thousands of its soldiers fighting in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Reports of Ukraine’s advancement in Lyman comes weeks after Ukrainian forces launched a counteroffensive to retake control of Russian-held areas in the eastern Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said Russian forces killed at least 20 people, including 10 children, in an attack on a convoy carrying people fleeing northeastern Ukraine.

The attack could not be independently verified.

It follows a missile strike on another civilian convoy in Zaporizhzhia region on Friday in which 30 people were killed and scores were wounded.

Britain’s Defense Ministry said Saturday the missile used in Friday’s attack “was likely a Russian long-range air defense missile being used in a ground attack role.”

The ministry said in an intelligence report posted on Twitter the use of the “high-value resource” in the ground attack near Zaporizhzhia “has almost certainly been driven by overall munitions shortages, particularly longer-range precision missiles.”

(VOA)