Ukraine forces Russian troops out of city a day after Vladimir Putin’s annexation
Russian troops have pulled out of the city of Lyman in eastern Ukraine due to the risk they were being encircled by Ukrainian forces, a Russian news agency has said.
Lyman was in occupied Donetsk, one of the Ukrainian regions that was annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a ceremony in Moscow on Friday.
Mr Putin has previously threatened retaliation if Russia is attacked.
Earlier, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern forces said Ukrainian forces had entered Lyman after surrounding thousands of Russian soldiers.
It prompted Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Russia’s Chechnya region and an ally of Mr Putin, to say that Moscow should consider using a low-yield nuclear weapon in Ukraine as a result of the defeats on the battlefield.
It comes amid ongoing attempts by Ukrainian forces to advance and also hold back Russian troops in other parts of Donetsk, including in Bakhmut.
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Footage posted by advisor to the interior ministry claiming to show a Russian convoy attacked while leaving Lyman
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US non-governmental organisation that has been monitoring the situation in Ukraine, highlighted the imminent fall of Lyman on Thursday, saying Russian social media commentators had been posting of their fears that Ukrainian troops were advancing to the west, north, and northeast of the town.
It appears as though the near encirclement of the town was completed by early Saturday.
The ISW said on Thursday: “The collapse of the Lyman pocket will likely be highly consequential to the Russian grouping in northern Donetsk and western Luhansk oblasts and may allow Ukrainian troops to threaten Russian positions along the western Luhansk Oblast border and in the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk area.”
Video footage posted by the adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry Anton Gerashchenko showed what he said was a Russian convoy destroyed as it tried to leave Lyman.
Sky News has not verified the footage.
Lyman has served for months as a logistics and transport hub for Russian operations.
Its loss comes as a major defeat for Moscow, a day after Mr Putin proclaimed the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
In a Telegram post criticising Russian commanders for abandoning the east Ukrainian town of Lyman on Saturday, Mr Kadyrov wrote: “In my personal opinion, more drastic measures should be taken, right up to the declaration of martial law in the border areas and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons”.
Another video posted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff showed two grinning Ukrainian soldiers taping the yellow and blue national flag onto the “Lyman” welcome sign at the entrance to the town.
One of the soldiers says: “1 October. We are unfurling our state flag and establishing it on our land. Lyman will be Ukraine.”
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern forces said Russia had 5,000 to 5,500 troops at Lyman but that the number of troops that had been encircled could be lower because Russia had suffered a number of casualties.
The fall of Lyman would be Ukraine’s biggest battlefield gain since a lightning counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region last month, which left Russia reeling.
Ukrainian military spokesperson Serhii Cherevatyi said on television the capture of Lyman would allow Kyiv to advance into the Luhansk region, which Moscow claimed it had captured in full at the beginning of July.
Mr Cherevatyi said: “Lyman is important because it is the next step towards the liberation of the Ukrainian Donbas. It is an opportunity to go further to Kreminna and Severodonetsk, and it is psychologically very important.”
The Ukrainian governor of Luhansk, which is largely occupied by Moscow’s forces, said on Telegram that any surrounded Russians had “three options… to try to escape, to die together, or to surrender”.
Serhiy Haidai said: “The possibilities of delivering ammunition to the Russians to the surrounded city or a peaceful exit from the settlement are already blocked.”
Donetsk and Luhansk regions together make up the wider Donbas region that has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting since soon after Moscow invaded on 24 February.
World
Qatari PM says Israel ‘killed any hope’ of releasing hostages as criticism over Doha attack intensifies
Qatar’s prime minister said Israel has “killed any hope” of seeing more hostages returned from Gaza after carrying out an attack targeting Hamas leadership in his country.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani intensified his criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Tuesday’s unprecedented strike on Qatar, which killed at least six people.
“I was meeting one of the hostage’s families the morning of the attack,” Sheikh Mohammed told CNN in an interview aired late Wednesday.
“They are counting on this [ceasefire] mediation, they have no other hope for that.”
Sheikh Mohammed added that he thought Netanyahu had “just killed any hope for those hostages”.
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Ceasefire talks left in ‘tatters’
A total of 48 Israeli hostages captured during Hamas’ 7 October attacks on southern Israel have not been returned home.
With its attack in Qatar, Israel had sought to kill the political leaders of the Islamist group Hamas.
Hamas has said its top leaders survived the airstrike, but five members were killed, including the son of its exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator Khalil al Hayya.
The Israeli military operation in Doha has been widely condemned internationally and was particularly sensitive as Qatar has been mediating negotiations to bring about a ceasefire in the war in Gaza.
US President Donald Trump reportedly held a heated phone call with Mr Netanyahu after the attack, telling him his decision to target Hamas leadership in Qatar was not wise, according to The Wall Street Journal.
There has been no immediate acknowledgement of the remarks from Mr Netanyahu, however, he’s continued to defend the strikes and threatened further action against Qatar.
“I say to Qatar and all nations who harbour terrorists, you either expel them or you bring them to justice,” Mr Netanyahu said. “Because if you don’t, we will.”
Read more:
Israel has crossed a huge diplomatic red line with Qatar strike
Trump has ‘heated call’ with Netanyahu over Qatar strike
A senior figure in the Qatari government, Dr Majed Al-Ansari, was the one to announce to the world on X that America’s call to alert them to the attack came 10 minutes after the first explosion sounded in Doha.
Dr Al-Ansari, who serves as Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson, recounted the moment of the attack to Sky News’ correspondent Sally Lockwood.
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“I was coming home to my family and the moment I stepped out of the car I started hearing the loud noises that can only be compared to bombs,” he said.
“Being a diplomat and working for the foreign ministry throughout the mediation that we have conducted, I immediately knew that that meant that something terrible has happened.
“I can’t tell you enough how as a father living here in Qatar, that moment was a moment of reckoning for me and for all my countrymen and people who reside here in Qatar, where our lives were at risk because of the narcissistic and personal ambitions of a political operator who wants to throw the whole region into chaos.”
Donald Trump had a heated phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his military targeted Hamas inside Qatar, according to a report.
The American president told Mr Netanyahu on Tuesday that the decision to strike inside the US ally’s territory was not wise, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing senior administration officials.
The Israeli prime minister responded by saying he had a brief window to launch the airstrike and took the opportunity, according to the newspaper.
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Anger over Israeli strikes on Qatar
A second call between the two leaders later that day was cordial, with Mr Trump asking Mr Netanyahu if the attack had been successful, the publication added.
Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of the Islamist group Hamas with the attack in the Qatari capital Doha on Tuesday.
Hamas has said its top leaders survived the airstrike, but five members were killed, including the son of its exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator Khalil al Hayya.
The Israeli military operation in Doha has been widely condemned internationally and was particularly sensitive as Qatar has been hosting and mediating in negotiations which are trying to bring about a ceasefire in the war in Gaza.
On Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu warned Qatar to either expel Hamas officials or “bring them to justice. Because if you don’t, we will”.
Qatar has hit back at him, saying his comments about the Gulf nation hosting a Hamas office were “reckless”.
Donald Trump with Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House earlier this year. Pic: Reuters
Meanwhile, the Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, has said that if Israel failed to kill Hamas leaders on Tuesday, it would succeed next time.
“We have put terrorists on notice, wherever they may be… we’re going to pursue them, and we’re going to destroy those who will destroy us,” he said.
The airstrike took place shortly after Hamas claimed responsibility for Monday’s shooting at a bus stop on the outskirts of Jerusalem that killed six people.
Read more:
Analysis: Israel has crossed a huge diplomatic red line
In another development, Sir Keir Starmer has had talks with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Downing Street, with Mr Herzog saying they argued during a “tough meeting”.
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PM meets Israeli president
PM condemns Israeli action
The prime minister has condemned the Israeli attack in Qatar, and raised the matter with the president, saying it was “completely unacceptable”.
“He said the strikes were a flagrant violation of a key partner’s sovereignty and do nothing to secure the peace we all desperately want to see,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.
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Israel has been angered by Britain’s plans to join several other Western countries, including France and Canada, in recognising a Palestinian state later this month – unless Israel meets conditions including a ceasefire in Gaza.
“Things were said that were tough and strong, and clearly we can argue, because when allies meet, they can argue. We are both democracies,” Mr Herzog said at an event at Chatham House.
He also proposed offering a “fact-finding mission” to Israel, “sitting with us and studying the situation in Gaza on the humanitarian level”.
“Because we have full answers, and we are fully transparent,” he said.
The unprecedented Russian drone attacks on Poland are both a test and a warning. How Europe and NATO respond could be crucial to security on this continent.
The Russians are past masters at what’s called “salami slicing”. Tactics that use a series of smaller actions to produce a much bigger outcome that otherwise would have been far more provocative.
The Kremlin is probing the West with gradual but steady escalation. A British Council building and an EU installation are bombed in Kyiv; a senior EU official’s plane’s GPS is jammed.
On their own each provocation produces nothing more than rhetoric from the West – but new lines are crossed and Russia is emboldened.
Ukraine war latest: NATO chief sends message to Putin
Vladimir Putin has a history of testing the West. Pic: Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via Reuters
Putin is good at this.
He used salami slicing tactics masterfully in 2014 with his “little green men” invasion of Crimea, a range of ambiguous military and diplomatic tactics to take control. The West’s confused delay in responding sealed Crimea’s fate.
He has just taken a larger slice of salami with his drone attacks on Poland.
A drone found in a field in Mniszkow, eastern Poland
They are of course a test of NATO’s readiness to deploy its Article 5 obligations. Russia has attacked a member state, allies believe deliberately.
Will NATO trigger the all for one, one for all mechanism in Poland’s defence and attack Russia? Not very likely.
But failing to respond projects weakness. Putin will see the results of his test and plot the next one.
Expect lots of talk of sanctions but remember they failed to avert this invasion and have failed to persuade Russia to reverse it. The only sanctions likely to bite are the ones the US president refuses to approve, on Russia’s oil trade.
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Russia’s Poland incursion represents ‘new chapter’ in Ukraine war, expert says
So how are the drones also a warning? Well, they pose a question.
Vladimir Putin is asking the West if it really wants to become more involved in this conflict with its own forces. Europeans are considering putting boots on the ground inside Ukraine after any potential ceasefire.
If this latest attack is awkward and complicated and hard to respond to now, what happens if Russia uses hybrid tactics then?
Deniable, ambiguous methods that the Russians excel in could make life very difficult for the alliance if it is embroiled in Ukraine.
Think twice before committing your troops there, Russia is warning the West.
Read more:
The pivotal question for NATO
Trump ready to move to second stage of Russia sanctions
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There is more Europe could do.
It could stop buying Russian energy, which it is still astonishingly importing – more than 20 billion euros a year at the last count.
It could use its massive economic advantage (20 times that of Russia’s, and that was before the war) to do more to fund Ukraine’s defence.
While it continues to do neither, expect more excruciating slices of the salami to come.
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