Recent gains made by the Russian army indicate a shift in momentum in the war over Ukraine.
As of Saturday, May 30, Russia is now in complete control of the Ukrainian town of Lyman in the Donetsk region.
“Following the joint actions of the units of the militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Russian armed forces, the town of Lyman has been entirely liberated from Ukrainian nationalists,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
Lyman is a crucial railway hub 30 miles west of Severodonetsk, the largest Donbas city still held by Ukraine. With Lyman under their control, Russian forces can use it as a stage to continue their offensive into eastern Donbas.
The UK defense ministry said Lyman is “strategically important” for Russian troops as it grants them access to rail and road bridges that pass over the Siverskyi Donets river, according to The Kyiv Independent.
Ukrainian and Russian forces had been fighting for Lyman for several days. On Friday, the governor of the Luhansk region, which along with Donetsk, makes up the Donbas region, said that Russian troops had entered Sievierodonetsk.
As of Wednesday, Russian forces controlled more than two-thirds of Sievierodonetsk as Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, conceded that his troops were suffering up to 100 deaths and 500 injuries every day.
Serhiy Hayday, the head of the Luhansk regional military administration, told CNN that the Russians are bombarding Sievierodonetsk.
“The Russian army is destroying the city, shelling with all kinds of weapons. Russian troops entered the outskirts of the city, the Mir Hotel. We can’t get them out of the hotel yet, but they have a lot of dead. Our guys are holding them back,” Hayday said.
Western officials suggest that the city of Sloviansk is the likely next target for a Russian advance after they take hold of Sievierodonetsk.
The slow and steady gains by the Russian forces indicate that they will be able to capture all of the Luhansk region of Donbas, one of the goals the Kremlin set after abandoning its assault on the capital city of Kyiv in the face of Ukrainian resistance.
On Saturday, Ukrainian presidential adviser and peace talks negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak called for the delivery of U.S.-made long-range multiple-rocket launchers.
“It is hard to fight when you are attacked from 70 km away and have nothing to fight back with. Ukraine can return Russia behind the Iron Curtain, but we need effective weapons for that,” Podolyak posted on Twitter.
President Zelenskyy added to the calls for weaponry from the U.S. during a late-night video address in which he stated that he expected “good news on this next week.”
On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced it would be sending Ukraine $700 million in military aid, including the high-tech, medium-range rocket launchers.
