Russia-Ukraine Crisis: As Russia asserted progress in its goal of seizing the entirety of contested eastern Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin tried to shake European resolve to punish his country with sanctions and to keep supplying weapons that have supported Ukraine’s defence.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Lyman, the second small city to fall this week, had been “completely liberated” by a joint force of Russian soldiers and Kremlin-backed separatists, who have waged war for eight years in the industrial Donbas region bordering Russia. Ukraine’s train system has ferried arms and evacuated citizens through Lyman, a key railway hub in the east.
Control of it also would give Russia’s military another foothold in the region; it has bridges for troops and equipment to cross the Siverskiy Donets river, which has so far impeded the Russian advance into the Donbas.
Meanwhile, some 50 homes in the village of Demydiv remain partially submerged months after a dam was destroyed and the area flooded to stop Russian troops from advancing on Ukraine capital Kyiv, regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba said. The Ukrainian military blew up a dam on the river Irpin in February, sending water surging into the village and thousands of acres around it, flooding houses and fields, but preventing Russian tanks from reaching the capital city.