Ukrainian military in front of a government building in Lyman.
The Ukrainian military has recaptured more territory in regions illegally annexed by Russia, making gains near the southern city of Kherson and consolidating its presence in retaken eastern areas over the weekend.
The advances were confirmed by Vladimir Saldo, a Russian-installed leader in the Kherson region, who alleged that Russian forces were digging in.
Meanwhile, in the east, Ukrainian forces advanced further into the Russian-controlled Luhansk region.
“There are new liberated settlements in various regions,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday night.
“Fierce fighting continues in many areas,” the president added, without offering details on where the fighting was taking place.
However, he detailed that there were more and more Russian soldiers trying to escape and that the Ukrainians were “inflicting more and more more and more losses to the enemy army“.
Kyiv’s progress means Russia no longer has full control of any of the four Ukrainian regions it annexed last week.
Ukrainian troops managed to expel Russian troops from the strategic city of Lyman in Donbas on Saturday, dealing a heavy blow to President Vladimir Putin, according to war analysts.
The expulsion came just one day following Putin signed “accession treaties” that formalized Russia’s annexation of four ukrainian regionswhich represented the largest forced takeover of a territory in Europe since World War II.
Lyman had become a major logistics hub for Russian troop deployment and ammunition supplies.
Nikita, 7, and her brother Yegor, 8, eat lunch at a newly opened soup kitchen in Izium, a city that was recently liberated by Ukraine. Many local stores and businesses were destroyed.
Experts say that its recovery would allow Ukrainian troops to retake the northern part of the Donetsk region and advance further into the neighboring Lugansk region.
The withdrawal of Russian troops from Lyman has sparked criticism in Russia of the military’s top brass from prominent Russian personalities and influential social media accounts.
The intense battle for the south continues
Now in the south, Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed leader in the Kherson region, admitted that Ukrainian forces had stormed near Dudchany, a town on the banks of the Dnipro River, some 30km south of where the line that separated both armies previously.
“There are settlements that are occupied by Ukrainian forces,” Saldo explained. Some Russian media claim that the Ukrainians have recaptured the city of Dudchany.
Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, confirmed that the Ukrainian tanks, which are “numerically superior“, had opened a “deep breach” south of Zolota Balka, a town that marked the previous front line on the Dnipro.
He claimed that the Russians had killed around 130 Ukrainian soldiers in the battle for the area.
A hospital damaged following a Russian missile bombardment in Kupiansk, in the Kharkov region.
Saldo added that two Ukrainian battalions tried to reach the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, regarding 70 km east of Kherson, specifically in the port city of Nova Kakhovka.
According to the agency Archyde.com, the Ukrainian advance is aimed at cutting the supply lines of up to 25,000 Russian troops on the west bank of the Dnipro.
“Impossible” a dialogue with Putin
The events of the last week, which include the illegal annexation of Ukrainian territories by Moscow, have further removed the possibility of reaching an agreement to end the conflict.
On Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed a decree formally declaring “impossible” the perspective of any dialogue with Vladimir Putin.
The decree formalizes comments made by Zelenskiy on Friday following the Russian president proclaimed four occupied regions of Ukraine as part of Russia.
Moment in which the Ukrainian army removes the Russian flag from a government building in Lyman.
“He (Putin) doesn’t know what the dignity and honesty. Therefore, we are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but with another president of Russia,” Zelenskiy said on Friday.
Meanwhile, at a press conference in Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov assured on Tuesday that the “special military operation” in Ukraine would not end if Kyiv ruled out dialogue.
“Two sides are needed to negotiate,” he added.
Clause one of the decree signed by Zelenskiy, which was prepared by the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council on September 30, reads “(Ukraine has decided) to declare that it is impossible to conduct negotiations with the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin”.
More Russians summoned to war; many flee
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said more than 200,000 people have been called up for military service since Russia announced a “partial mobilization” two weeks ago, according to news agency reports. RIA Novosti.
Since Putin made the announcement, miles of slow-moving cars line roads near Russia’s borders with other countries and thousands have left Russia.
Interviewed by the Russian service of the BBC, many of the people stuck in traffic speak of a “humanitarian catastrophe“at the border.
On the border line between Russia and Georgia, some people, mostly young Russians, spend days in traffic jams trying to leave their country.
They stay most of the day inside their cars, where they also sleep. Many are also running out of food and water.
Russia’s Defense Ministry says reservists drafted into the army under Putin’s mobilization order are now receiving a intensive combat training in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, largely controlled by Russia.
The Kremlin plans to call up some 300,000 reservists, though Putin has not put a limit on the number of people he might call up for war.
For its part, Kyiv has vowed to retake all territory annexed by Russia, including Crimea, seized by Russian troops in 2014.
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