Ukraine contributes to war – Zelenskyj: “Can’t bring back all territories”

According to Zelenskyy, Ukraine will not be able to fully take back the territory Russia has occupied in recent years. “I don’t think we can reclaim our entire territory by military means,” he said in an interview his office posted online in full on Saturday. Such an approach would kill hundreds of thousands of people.

Moscow: city of Lyman conquered
The interview was first broadcast on Dutch television on Friday. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. The strategically important city of Lyman in eastern Ukraine has since been captured, according to Russian information. The Ministry of Defense in Moscow announced that it is completely under the control of Russian troops and their allied units of the Donetsk People’s Republic. On Friday, pro-Russian separatists from the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” announced they would capture Lyman. The Ukrainian military, meanwhile, acknowledged only one setback in the battle for Lyman.

“Thanks to the joint action of units of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Russian armed forces, the city of Krasny Liman has been completely liberated from Ukrainian nationalists,” Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said on Saturday. Krasny Liman is the name for Lyman which dates back to Soviet times. Lyman is strategically important as a railway junction and road link to the Severodonetsk – Lysychansk in the east and Sloviansk – Kramatorsk in the southwest.

Konashenkov also reported heavy air and missile strikes on the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in the Donetsk region. Command posts and ammunition depots were hit, among other things. The Russian army spokesman estimated Ukraine’s losses at 260 soldiers through the air force alone.