Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday announced the full recovery of a strategic city in eastern Ukraine as a public row intensified in Russia over responsibility for the latest setback in the ‘goal of the Kremlin to conquer large areas of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Western supporters of Kyiv praised the advance of Ukrainian forces in areas that Moscow has declared will soon be part of Russia.
Zelensky said the town of Lyman, which Russian troops have used as a key logistics hub in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region since their arrival this spring, was completely “liberated from Russian occupiers” as of noon, local time, the defense ministry said on Twitter.
The president’s statement came a day after the Russian defense ministry acknowledged it had been forced to withdraw Lyman’s troops “to more advantageous lines.”
The consolidation of Ukrainian control of the city, following other gains by those forces since launching a major counteroffensive last month, provided a stark contrast to Russia’s strides to officially incorporate Donetsk and three other regions from the east to Russia after a series of referendums held there. last week, which Kyiv and its Western supporters have denounced as illegal and illegitimate.
Former senior US officials David Petraeus and HR McMaster said on October 2 that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest threats to Ukraine would not change the war. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post)
Zelensky mockingly referred to Putin’s attempt to declare Russian authority by fiat over areas now retaken by Ukrainian troops.
“That, you know, is the trend,” he said later in his evening video address. “Recently, someone held pseudo-referendums somewhere, and when the Ukrainian flag is returned, no one remembers the Russian farce with some pieces of paper and some annexations.”
The continued advance into Russian-held areas raises the risk of repeated threats by President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials in recent days, suggesting that Moscow could eventually use nuclear weapons to defend the territory it considers part of Russia, including the annexed areas of Ukraine.
Putin referenced the United States’ use of atomic bombs against Japan in 1945 during a fiery speech on Friday, in which the Russian leader cast the annexation of large swathes of Ukraine as fulfillment of the Russians’ destiny.
Ukraine’s supporters in the West, such as Kyiv’s leaders, have insisted they will not bow to Russian intimidation. On Sunday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Russia not to pursue any escalating retaliation linked to Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
“Once again it is an illegal claim; it’s an irresponsible statement,” he said in an interview with CNN. “Nuclear saber rattling is not the kind of thing we expect to hear from the leaders of large capable countries.”
Austin said he expected Ukrainian forces to continue offensive operations aimed at retaking all Russian-held territory, despite Putin’s recent order to mobilize an additional 300,000 troops to bolster the fight in Ukraine. Ukrainian forces are also trying to advance further into Russian-held areas of southern Ukraine, towards the city of Kherson.
“I don’t think this will stop, and we will continue to support them in their efforts,” he said.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described Lyman’s recovery as an example of the progress that Ukrainian forces were making “because of their bravery and skills, but of course also because of the advanced weapons provided by the States United and other allies”.
He noted that countries such as Norway and Germany were increasing their aid to Ukraine. “This is making a difference on the battlefield every day,” he told NBC.
The recent series of changes on the battlefield may signal that the Russian military is reaching a “breaking point,” said HR McMaster, a retired three-star general who served as national security adviser during Trump administration.
“What we could be here is really on the precipice of the collapse of the Russian military in Ukraine. A moral collapse,” he told CBS.
But U.S. officials have warned that while Russia has failed to achieve the initial goals of Putin’s February 24 invasion, including capturing Kyiv, the ongoing mobilization may still pose a formidable challenge to Ukraine. Even with larger sums of Western aid, Ukraine’s military is small in size and weaponry for Russia.
The leaders of nine Central and Eastern European countries on Sunday condemned Putin’s annexation, which will be formalized by Russia’s parliament on Monday and Tuesday, saying they cannot “remain silent in the face of this flagrant violation of international law.”
“We do not and will never recognize Russian attempts to annex any Ukrainian territory,” the presidents of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovakia said in a joint statement. .
As Russian forces tried to establish a new line of defense after their withdrawal from Lyman, a torrent of public recriminations and disputes over who was to blame for Moscow’s recent mishaps poured into hard-line pro-Kremlin Telegram channels.
In an open conflict that underscored the disarray in Russia’s ranks, two powerful figures with their own armed forces fighting Ukraine launched scathing attacks on Russian Defense Ministry commanders. It began with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s criticism of Russian military commanders on Saturday and his call to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
Then, in rare public comments, Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, founder of the mercenary group Wagner, added his own scathing attack.
“Kadyrov’s expressive statement is, of course, not entirely in my style,” he said, according to a Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel. “But I think we should send all these barefoot bastards to the front with machine guns,” he said in an apparent reference to top Russian military commanders.
Elena Panina, a former lawmaker and director of Russtrat, a pro-Kremlin think tank, called the public attacks on top Russian military figures “unprecedented” before piling on her own criticism, complaining of a lack of harsh military retaliation to punish Ukraine. by the Russian forced withdrawal.
He called Ukraine’s recapture of Lyman “a direct act of aggression against Russia,” referring to Russia’s illegal move to annex the region. Panina said the criticism of Russia’s military command came “amid military failures and to the delight of the enemy.”
But sweeping Russia’s failures under the rug was a path “fraught with real disasters,” he said. In what appeared to be a call to fire senior military officials, he called for “qualitative changes in personnel, of an organizational and operational nature, including emergency measures.”
“According to numerous estimates, Russia is facing a more numerous, better armed, better prepared and more motivated enemy,” Panina said, adding that it would take a “superhuman effort” to win.
Pro-Kremlin Telegram news channel Readovka described the public airing of recriminations as “worse than treason” and called for an end to public accusations of “hotheads” and “turbopatriots”, in a comment on its Telegram channel.
Ukraine on Sunday continued to push for the release of an official overseeing its Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant who authorities said had been detained by Russia. Fighting in the area around the facility, which is under Russian control but operated by Ukrainian engineers, has raised concerns of a nuclear accident.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he had spoken with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi, who told him the IAEA was working to get the release of Ihor Murashov, the director of the plant.
“I stressed that Russia must withdraw troops and military equipment from the station,” Kuleba said in a tweet.
Morgunov reported from Kyiv. Dixon reported from Riga, Latvia.
War in Ukraine: what you need to know
The last: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees on Friday to annex four occupied regions of Ukraine, following referendums that were widely denounced as illegal. Follow our live updates here.
The answer: The Biden administration announced a new round of sanctions on Russia on Friday in response to the annexations, targeting government officials and their relatives, Russian and Belarusian military officials and defense procurement networks. President Volodymyr Zelensky also said Friday that Ukraine is seeking “accelerated accession” to NATO, in an apparent response to the annexations.
In Russia: Putin declared a military mobilization on September 21 to call up up to 300,000 reservists in a dramatic bid to reverse setbacks in his war against Ukraine. The announcement led to an exodus of more than 180,000 people, most of whom were conscripted men, and renewed protests and other acts of defiance against the war.
The fight: Ukraine mounted a successful counteroffensive that forced a major Russian retreat in the northeastern Kharkiv region in early September, as troops fled towns and villages they had occupied since the first days of the war and abandoned large amounts of military equipment.
Pictures: Washington Post photographers have been on the ground since the beginning of the war; here are some of his most powerful works.
How you can help: Here are ways that those in the United States can support the Ukrainian people, as well as what people around the world have given.
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