KYIV: Ukraine said it has taken full control of Lyman, the eastern logistics hub that was part of the territory Russian President Vladimir Putin had illegally claimed last week was now part of Russia.

“Lyman is fully cleared,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared in a short video clip on his Telegram channel.

Russia did not comment Sunday on the fate of Lyman but said Saturday that its troops were retreating from the area because it feared Ukrainian forces were about to encircle them.

Russia had captured Lyman in May and had used it as a logistics and transportation hub for its operations in the north of the Donetsk region.

Russia’s loss of Lyman was its biggest battlefield defeat since Ukrainian forces last month swept through the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine, pushing Russian forces back toward their border.

David Petraeus, a former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency director, told ABC’s “This Week” show, that Putin is “going to continue to lose on the battlefield.” The only question, he said, is when larger Russian units start to surrender.

Petraeus said that even Putin’s threatened use of tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine “won’t change this.”

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio told CNN’s “State of the Union” show, “There really is no way for Russia to win this war.”

But Rubio said he worries that Putin could attack Western supply depots helping Ukraine in such NATO countries as Poland that could lead to a wider conflict, assuming Western allies respond to any attack on a fellow NATO member.

Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region that neighbors Donetsk, said control over Lyman could give Ukraine help in reclaiming lost territory in his region, which Moscow announced in early July that it had captured.

(VOA)