Just two days after Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin pompously announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, he suffered a severe defeat over the weekend. Because Ukrainian units recaptured the strategically important town of Lyman, which Russian troops took only in May. “Thanks to our military,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky triumphed in a video on Sunday.
Although Lyman had only 21,000 inhabitants when the war started, the city is an important transport hub – with rail and road connections to the main cities of Kharkiv and Horlivka. Considered Lyman’s “Gateway to Donbass” Ukrainians can now advance to the depths of Lugansk and Donetsk.
“That’s exactly what they’re going to do,” says military analyst Walter Feichtinger in an interview with KURIER, “they’re going to take advantage of the enemy’s current weakness, because new forces won’t reach the front until weeks, if not months, after the partial Russian mobilization.” From a climate point of view, the counter-offensive must also be accelerated, “because once the autumn rains set in, it is very difficult for the tanks to advance”, said the president of the “Center for Strategic Analysis”. Of course, this also poses dangers – the logistics for resupply are becoming more difficult and “flank attacks” are threatening.