Bittersweet victory in Lyman as battle has come at a significant cost to civilians
Success on the battlefield translates into a very different language for the residents of Lyman – and has come at a significant cost to the civilians.
The eastern Donetsk town is a husk of its former self, pummelled to bits with the heart ripped out of it and the few residents still there living beneath ground “like moles”, one told us.
“We don’t care who’s in control here,” one woman told us. “It could be the devil. We just want them to stop shooting.”
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We saw the corpses of Russian soldiers strewn on the road into Lyman, their burnt-out and wrecked vehicles beside them.
Their bodies were bloated and their faces wax-yellow in colour, with personal bags spewing their contents all around them.
“Careful”, one of my colleagues cautioned to our team, “there are mines everywhere”.
Sure enough, hidden amongst the soldiers’ belongings and half-covered with leaves and dirt were several mines along the road.
The Russians had wanted to kill as they beat a retreat in the face of the Ukrainian army.
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The road to Lyman
The recapture of Lyman is a significant victory because it was used by the Russians as a key transport hub – the railway lines used to take supplies and ammunition to their units in Donetsk and Luhansk, the two regions which make up the Donbas.
The severing of this vital supply link is likely to impact not only the Russians’ ability to maintain defences on the eastern front but potentially their plans to move forward. At least, that appears to be the Ukrainian intention.
The recapture has certainly placed them in a good military position on the eastern front and the soldiers are clearly buoyed by these successes.
“In Mariupol, the battle was the biggest,” Roman tells us in halting but clear English.
But here, in Lyman? I ask.
“Here the Russians go away,” he replies, smiling.
“Here they do a little shoot and go away.” There’s another telling smile from him.
Roman says the Russians didn’t put up much resistance
This has been no Mariupol.
Lyman was significantly empty of much Ukrainian military whilst we were in the town, days after it had been seized by the Ukrainians.
This seemed to indicate they’d secured it and already moved forward to try to recapture more villages and towns inside the Donbas.
Lyman is only about 10 miles from the border of neighbouring Luhansk and several soldiers we’ve spoken to are already confidently predicting the reclaiming of further substantial territory there.
But for those left in the wake of these military manoeuvres, the fight to survive has become no less harsh.
Part of a missile in a children’s playground
We found men trying to cut down trees in the grounds of the hospital. They were gathering wood to burn. The town has had no electricity for months and winter is fast approaching.
The hospital building had been holed in several places. We could see stretchers and medical paraphernalia including babies’ cots through the broken windows.
It’s difficult to work out, given that the Russians were holding Lyman for many months, who mounted the attack on the medical facility.
Was it done in the initial capture of the town or during the shelling to try to dislodge the Russian troops?
That will surely form part of an investigation into just what happened here, given attacking a hospital is against international law and a potential war crime.
There are anxious glances from the men cutting wood as an army fuel truck rumbles by. They can see the Russian ‘Z’ symbol – but it’s been painted over with a less distinct Ukrainian cross.
Natalia lives and eats in a basement and says it’s no life
“War over land,” one of them men mutters to us, “but we’ve got nothing to heat our houses… no electricity… nothing.”
The men – like many here – don’t want to be filmed.
“You ask us about referendums,” one woman remonstrates. “We don’t want to talk politics. We want to stop living in shelters. Even dogs have better lives than us right now.”
Natalia takes us down the stairs into a cold, dark concrete shelter where they’ve piled up stocks of wood to do underground cooking and to try to keep warm during the winter.
They don’t seem to believe life is likely to change much for them in the immediate future.
The town might have been recaptured but there’s a deep reluctance to take any chances and a great sense of doubt over whether the fighting is truly over here.
“There are no jobs, no pensions, nothing… no salaries,” Natalia says to us.
“We have nothing… our children have no salaries and no jobs… can you call this a life?” Her voice cracks and she sobs. “I can’t do this any more,” she says.
The police station has been freshly repainted in the colours of the Ukrainian flag
Lyman’s police station still has its signage in Russian but there’s a pot of paint and paintbrushes near the gate which show it’s been freshly remodelled with the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag.
A policeman shows us the picture of the Russian flag which was on the same gate just a few days earlier. Flags and allegiances are all-important here.
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Alex Crawford reports from inside Lyman
Another policeman from Lyman arrives at the group of civilians we’re with – to let them know he’s back in town and will work on trying to reconnect the badly-needed utilities.
“We just need electricity,” several residents say to him, talking over each other at this rare sight of someone in authority.
“It’s just our second day here,” the policeman, Dmytro, tells them. “We can’t fix everything at once.”
But he reassures them: “We know you need it. We are trying.”
Seventy-five-year-old Zina stops cycling to talk to us. Like so many here, she’s endured a lot but with nowhere to go, there’s been little option for her.
“Who wants this war?” she says. “No one wants it… everyone is leaving, everyone has run away… the city is empty.”
‘Everyone is leaving, everyone has run away… the city is empty,’ says Zina
Police try to reassure people they will get things back up and running
And it’s not just Lyman. The surrounding villages and communities around the city have been battered almost beyond recognition.
The roads around the Kharkiv region – where the Ukrainians executed a lightning rout of Russian troops, allowing them to grab back Izyum and move onto Lyman – are littered with rusting carcasses of military vehicles.
The surrounding communities are also mostly empty and much of them, piles of rubble. Victory is bittersweet in Ukraine.
Alex Crawford reports with cameraman Jake Britton and producers Chris Cunningham and Artem Lysak.
Several victims of Jeffrey Epstein have told Sky News that the incomplete release of the files relating to the dead paedophile financier have left them feeling shocked, outraged and disappointed.
Thousands of files relating to Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, were made public late on Friday – but only a fraction of them have been released so far, with many heavily redacted.
‘Nothing transparent about release’
Marina Lacerda, a Brazilian-born survivor who suffered sexual abuse by Epstein as a teenager, expressed her disappointment over the incomplete release, calling it “a slap in our faces”.
“We were all excited yesterday before the files came out,” she told Sky News presenter Anna Botting.
“And when they did come out, we were just in shock, and we see that there is nothing there that is transparent. So it’s very sad, it’s very disappointing.”
Ms Lacera said she had just turned 14 when she met Epstein before “our relationship, our friendship I should say” ended when she was 17.
“At that point, he had made it very clear to me that I was old, that I was no longer fun for him. So, he booted me out, and I was no longer needed for him,” she said.
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The Department of Justice (DoJ) suggests that 1,200 victims and their families have effectively been shielded from view in the released documents.
Ms Lacera said: “From what I know, [the number of Epstein victims] is over a thousand, but that’s just what the DoJ can collect or the FBI can collect, but I presume there may be more than that.”
Marina Lacerda spoke outside the US Capitol in favour of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Pic: AP
‘No way it’s not a cover-up’
Ashley Rubright met the late sex offender when she was just 15 in Palm Beach and was subject to abuse over several years.
Asked about her dissatisfaction with yesterday’s government release and if there was a sense of a cover-up operation, she noted that there had been knowledge of Epstein’s crimes “for so, so long”.
“There’s no way that there’s not a cover-up – what it is, I don’t know,” she told Sky News’ US correspondent James Matthews.
“I just hope that nobody’s allowed to fly under the radar with their involvement.”
Regarding the extent of the redactions, she said: “I’m so not shocked, but let down. Disappointed.
“Seeing […] completely redacted pages, there’s no way that that’s just to protect the victims’ identities, and there better be a good reason. I just don’t know if we’ll ever know what that is.
“We’ve been left behind since day one. That’s why I think we’re all fighting so loud now, because we’re tired of it.”
Ashley Rubright speaks at a rally in support of Epstein victims. Pic: Reuters
‘He wanted to man-handle me’
Another survivor, Alicia Arden, told Sky News that she met Epstein in a California hotel room in 1997 for an audition, when she was a 25-year-old model and actress.
“He let me in and he started looking over my portfolio, which is customary to do in a talent audition, and then he insinuated, ‘oh, you should come closer to me and let me see your body’,” she said.
Epstein then started “taking off my top and my pants and touching my rear end and my breasts”.
“He goes, ‘let me come over here and spin for me and let me man-handle you. Let me man-handle you.’ And I got very nervous and started to cry. I said, ‘I have to go, Jeffrey. I don’t really think this is gonna work out’,” Ms Arden said.
“He got a phone call and I was crying in front of him. And he said, ‘I have this beautiful girl in front of me and she’s very upset’. I said ‘I’m gonna leave’ and he offered me $100 and I said ‘I’m not a prostitute’.”
Alicia Arden
She said she went to the Santa Monica Police Department to file a report.
“That was as difficult, and I’m like shaking telling you, but as difficult as being in the hotel room with him because they weren’t supportive at all about it,” she said. Her redacted report was included in previous files.
‘Epstein was a monster’
Asked what she thought about Epstein now, she said: “He’s a monster […] and just horrible. I mean, I’m trembling thinking about him and talking about him.
“If I could do anything, I’m happy I got the police report filed. If they would have pursued him and maybe gone over the hotel [where he was] essentially living, then I could have maybe saved the girls. I’ve always thought that.”
Ms Arden’s redacted police report. Pic: AP
Ms Arden does not believe she has seen justice as one of Epstein’s victims.
“I want to see all of the files come out. I want all of the men in there or women that were trafficking these girls, and they shouldn’t be able to walk around free and not pay for if they did something,” she said.
“They should be actually arrested if they’re in the files and it’s proven that they did horrible things to these girls, and they should lose their jobs, their lives, their homes, their money, and pay for what they did, and it was all supposed to come out, and it hasn’t.”
Jeffrey Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges
‘I feel redeemed’ by file release
Maria Farmer, who made a complaint to the Miami FBI in 1996 in which she alleged that Epstein stole and sold photos she had taken of her 12- and 16-year-old sisters, expressed gratitude for the release of the files.
“This is amazing. Thank you for believing me. I feel redeemed. This is one of the best days of my life,” she said in a statement through her lawyers.
“I’m crying for two reasons. I want everyone to know that I am shedding tears of joy for myself, but also tears of sorrow for all the other victims that the FBI failed.”
Annie Farmer holds a photo of herself and her sister, Maria Farmer, when they were victims of Epstein. Pic: AP
A positive-leaning reaction also came from Dani Bensky, who said she was sexually abused by Epstein when she was 17 years old.
She told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News: “There is part of me that feels a bit validated at this moment, because I think so many of us have been saying, ‘No, this is real, like, we’re not a hoax’.
“There’s so much information, and yet not as much as we may have wanted to see.”
‘It is not over’
Lawyer Gloria Allred, who has represented several Epstein victims, told Sky News about the partial release on Friday: “It’s very disappointing that all of the files were not released yesterday as required and, in fact, mandated by law.
“The law didn’t say they could do this over a period of time, it didn’t say that weeks could go by.”
Lawyer Gloria Allred
Deputy attorney general Mr Blanche said additional file disclosures can be expected by the end of the year.
“But that’s not what the law says. So clearly, the law has been violated. And it’s the Department of Justice letting down the survivors once again,” Ms Allred said.
The lawyer labelled the incomplete release of the files a “distraction”, adding: “This is not over, and it won’t be over until we get the truth and transparency for the survivors.”
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‘Only redactions required by law’
The tranche of material was released just hours before a legal deadline in the US following the passing of the Epstein Files Transparency Act – and at the same time as a US strike targeting Islamic State fighters in Syria.
The US deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said the justice department was continuing to review the remaining files and was withholding some documents under exemptions meant to protect the victims.
But Sky News’ James Matthews said the significance of the files “is undermined by the lack of context”, while some Democrats and Republicans criticised the partial release as failing to “comply with law”.
Meanwhile, the justice department has defended the redactions made in the released files.
“The only redactions being applied to the documents are those required by law – full stop. Consistent with the statute and applicable laws, we are not redacting the names of individuals or politicians unless they are a victim,” it quoted deputy attorney general Mr Blanche in a post on X.
The Trump administration has claimed to be the most transparent in history.
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In a statement, the White House claimed the release also demonstrated its commitment to justice for Epstein’s victims, criticising previous Democratic administrations for not doing the same.
But that statement ignored that the disclosures only happened because Congress forced the administration’s hand with a bill demanding the release, after Trump officials declared earlier this year that no more Epstein files would be made public.
Can it be a coincidence that US planes attacked Syria around the very time the Epstein files were released?
It would be cynical – but then again, it would be how politics works.
The deadline-day release of the Epstein files had White House media management written all over it, unredacted.
Initial searches for Trump’s name within the Department of Justice search function returned nothing, while the presence of former president Bill Clinton, on the other hand, was everywhere.
It is PR strategy 101 – front-load the release of documents with the Democrat stuff and save any possible Trump content for a soft landing sometime between Christmas and New Year.
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Pic: NBC
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By that time, the public will have softened its focus on the story – it’s what the festive season does.
The presence of celebrity in the latest release might also feather Trump’s bed.
It’s clear that iconic superstars like Mick Jagger and Diana Ross were courted by Epstein as innocents, ignorant of his criminality. To see them in the files cements a narrative of a monster who lured the unsuspecting into his orbit.
We support Jagger and Ross as treasured icons, so we remind ourselves that simply being included in the files doesn’t equate to wrongdoing or knowledge of it. In turn, it shapes an empathy around the predicament that will extend to Trump and, perhaps, the benefit of any doubt.
Of course, not everyone will see it that way – the people who see a cynical exercise in delay and obfuscation, constituting a gross insult to the Epstein survivors at the heart of the story.
Jeffrey Epstein and Michael Jackson. Pic: US DoJ
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For all the talk (by the Trump administration) of a tight time scale and a willingness to act transparently, survivors and their supporters point out that Donald Trump could have published all the Epstein files long ago, never mind drip feed them with wide-ranging redactions.
Not to have done so is an affront to them and an attempt to evade accountability.
For all the talk about the release of the files, their significance is undermined by the lack of context. We are shown pictures and documents that reflect the life of a thoroughly unpleasant individual who inflicted suffering on an industrial scale. But with redactions, and without explanations, we are left having to join the dots in an effort to establish criminal behaviour and blame.
It is a level of uncertainty surrounding the Epstein files and a source of dissatisfaction to survivors, for whom justice further delayed is justice further denied.
Ukraine has struck a Russian tanker in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time, a Kyiv intelligence source has said.
The ship, called the Qendil, suffered “critical damage” in the attack, according to a member of the SBU, Ukraine’s internal security agency.
The tanker is said to be part of Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” – a group of ageing vessels that Kyiv alleges helps Moscow exports large quantities of crude oil despite Western sanctions.
The SBU source said Ukrainian drones hit the ship in neutral waters more than 2,000 kilometres (1,243 miles) from Ukraine.
They said: “Russia used this tanker to circumvent sanctions and earn money that went to the war against Ukraine.
“Therefore, from the point of view of international law and the laws and customs of war, this is an absolutely legitimate target for the SBU.
“The enemy must understand that Ukraine will not stop and will strike it anywhere in the world, wherever it may be.”
The vessel was empty at the time of the attack, the Ukrainian source added.
Speaking during a live TV event, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, claimed the attack would not disrupt supplies, but vowed that Russia would retaliate nonetheless.
He added that Russia regularly responded with “much stronger strikes” against Ukraine.
Putin also warned against any threat to blockade Russia’s coastal exclave Kaliningrad, which he said would “just lead to unseen escalation of the conflict” and could trigger a “large-scale international conflict”.
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Sky military analyst Michael Clarke said Ukraine’s claim about causing significant damage to the ship was “probably true”.
He added: “The Ukrainians obviously feel that they can legitimise this sort of operation.”
The Qendil, pictured near Istanbul last month. Pic: Reuters
The attack comes after the European Union announced it would provide a €90bn (£79bn) interest-free loan to Ukraine.
Oleksandr Merezhko, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian parliament, told Sky News that the money would “tremendously enhance” Kyiv’s defensive capabilities.
However, he said the International Monetary Fund estimated that Ukraine needed $137bn to “keep running”.
“The aggressor should be punished”, Mr Merezhko added, as he argued that frozen Russian assets in Europe should be used to help fund his country’s defence.
He vowed that Ukraine would “continue to fight” for the move, adding that it was “a matter of justice”.
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