by Lorenzo Cremonesi
Chechen leader Kadyrov: “Putin is considering using a nuclear weapon”. New explosions at a base in Crimea
FROM OUR SEND
KRAMATORSK (DONBASS) – The yellow and blue flag has been flying over Lyman again since yesterday. Ukraine’s advance, aimed at retaking the entire Donbass and pushing back Russian troops even beyond the positions where the invasion started on February 24, is not stopping.
It is a bitter military, political and moral defeat for Vladimir Putin and his entourage: immediately after the farce referendum (considered illegal and condemned by a large part of the international community) announced with great pomp in Moscow two days ago annexation of the occupied territories, the Kyiv armed forces are demonstrating with facts that the military reality on the ground is radically different from what the Russians proclaimed.
There is no annexation on paper or a unilateral declaration that it holds: the Ukrainians simply fight better and with greater determination than the Russians, the weapons provided to them by the western allies, led by the United States , guarantee a superiority over the Russian soldiers can not counter. That also confirms the meager but realistic testimony of the Moscow high command, which appeared yesterday, just a few hours after the announcement from Kyiv about the successes of its troops and shortly after the photos of Ukrainian flags on social media on the roofs of the city of Lyman, he admitted that his soldiers “retire so as not to be surrounded and risk capture”. And he added: “Despite the losses suffered, our enemies, superior in arms and troops, continued to advance.”
The Donbass Gate
Thus, the Ukrainian recapture of Lyman at the gates of north-central Donbass, just as it is taking place, is acquiring fundamental importance and seems to herald new defeats on the Russian side. To understand its importance, it must be remembered that Lyman was occupied in mid-May. For Putin it was the moment of victory, the last Mariupol resistance fighters had just capitulated and the advances in Donbass erased memories of the defeats in the Kiev sector in March.
More than half of Lyman’s 20,000 or so residents had fled, but the Russians had converted it into a logistics and railway center that served as a liaison and distribution point for supplies to troops stationed in Lugansk on the northern route to Izyum and Kharkiv and further that operated from central Donetsk to Zaporizhia and Dnipro. But the stalemate had already begun in late July. The Himars rocket launchers, along with the drones and heavy artillery that the US, along with NATO allies, was gradually supplying to the Ukrainians, made a difference.
The Chechen Appeal
The turning point came in the second week of September, when Ukrainian columns broke from Kharkiv to Izyum, dealing a mortal blow to enemy morale and offensive capabilities. Expecting an attack in the south against Kherson, the Russians were stunned in the north-east. In less than two weeks, they’ve lost far more territory than they gained between late April and early September. They had imagined at the time that they could resist in the very dense forests around Lyman, where both armies had lost hundreds of men: with the onset of the winter frosts, the Ukrainians might have entrenched themselves.
But that was not the case, and the Russian withdrawal risks becoming a route in the heart of the very countries that Putin is now declaring to be “an integral part of Rusky Mir,” the world of Russia. Will he really use “all means” to defend them, including using nuclear weapons as a threat now openly? Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who yesterday advised the use of “low-intensity tactical bombs” and called for the resignation of Russia’s Lyman Square commander, Colonel Alexander Lapin, to wave the nuclear bugbear.
New goals
What is certain is that the traditional options for the Kremlin generals are dwindling drastically: the 300,000 and possibly more new recruits in recent days will take months to train and equip, and moving selected units from the Kherson sector risks a meltdown in the Kherson Sector as Nun, southwest. Meanwhile, Ukrainians appear to be focused on the town of Svatove in the heart of Lugansk. Here the signs of panic and chaos among Russians are mounting: the attacks on civilians prove it, as always. Yesterday Ukrainian authorities found the bodies of at least 25 civilians, including 13 children and a pregnant woman, massacred by bullets in their car convoy attempting to reach Ukrainian lines around Kharkiv from Svatove. In the evening there were also reports of possible new Ukrainian raids on Russian bases in Crimea.
October 2, 2022 (update October 2, 2022 | 09:13)
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