Af­ter be­ing en­cir­cled by Ukrain­ian forces, Rus­sia pulled troops out Sat­ur­day from an east­ern Ukrain­ian city that it had been us­ing as a front-line hub. It was the lat­est vic­to­ry for the Ukrain­ian coun­terof­fen­sive that has hu­mil­i­at­ed and an­gered the Krem­lin.

Rus­sia’s with­draw­al from Ly­man com­pli­cates its in­ter­na­tion­al­ly vil­i­fied de­c­la­ra­tion just a day ear­li­er that it had an­nexed four re­gions of Ukraine — an area that in­cludes Ly­man. Tak­ing the city paves the way for Ukrain­ian troops to po­ten­tial­ly push fur­ther in­to land that Moscow now il­le­gal­ly claims as its own.

The fight­ing comes at a piv­otal mo­ment in Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin’s war. Fac­ing Ukrain­ian gains on the bat­tle­field — which he frames as a U.S.-or­ches­trat­ed ef­fort to de­stroy Rus­sia — Putin this week height­ened threats of nu­clear force and used his most ag­gres­sive, an­ti-West­ern rhetoric to date.

Ly­man had been an im­por­tant link in the Russ­ian front line for both ground com­mu­ni­ca­tions and lo­gis­tics. Lo­cat­ed 160 kilo­me­ters (100 miles) south­east of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s sec­ond-largest city, it is in the Donet­sk re­gion near the bor­der with Luhan­sk re­gion, both of which Rus­sia an­nexed Fri­day af­ter a lo­cal “ref­er­en­dum” was held at gun­point.

Ukrain­ian forces have re­tak­en vast swaths of ter­ri­to­ry in a coun­terof­fen­sive that start­ed in Sep­tem­ber. They have pushed Russ­ian forces out of the Kharkiv area and moved east across the Os­kil Riv­er.

Moscow’s with­draw­al from Ly­man prompt­ed im­me­di­ate crit­i­cism from some Russ­ian of­fi­cials.

The leader of Chech­nya, Ramzan Kady­rov, blamed the re­treat, with­out ev­i­dence, on one gen­er­al be­ing “cov­ered up for by high­er-up lead­ers in the Gen­er­al Staff.” He called for “more dras­tic mea­sures.”

Mean­while, on the Russ­ian-an­nexed Crimean Penin­su­la, the gov­er­nor of the city of Sev­astopol an­nounced an emer­gency sit­u­a­tion at an air­field there. Ex­plo­sions and huge bil­lows of smoke could be seen from a dis­tance by beach­go­ers in the Russ­ian-held re­sort. Au­thor­i­ties said a plane rolled off the run­way at the Bel­bek air­field and am­mu­ni­tion that was re­port­ed­ly on board caught fire.

Rus­sia an­nexed the Black Sea penin­su­la of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 in vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law.

Russ­ian bom­bard­ments have in­ten­si­fied in re­cent days as Moscow moved swift­ly with its lat­est an­nex­a­tion and or­dered a mass mo­bi­liza­tion at home to bol­ster its forces. The Russ­ian call-up has proven un­pop­u­lar at home, prompt­ing tens of thou­sands of Russ­ian men to flee the coun­try.

Ukraine’s pres­i­dent, Volodymyr Ze­len­skyy, and his mil­i­tary have vowed to keep fight­ing to lib­er­ate the re­gions Putin claimed to have an­nexed Fri­day, and oth­er Russ­ian-oc­cu­pied ar­eas.

Ukrain­ian au­thor­i­ties ac­cused Russ­ian forces of tar­get­ing two hu­man­i­tar­i­an con­voys in re­cent days, killing dozens of civil­ians.

The gov­er­nor of the Kharkiv re­gion, Oleh Syniehubov, said 24 civil­ians were killed in an at­tack this week on a con­voy try­ing to flee the Ku­pi­ansk dis­trict. He called it “сru­el­ty that can’t be jus­ti­fied.” He said 13 chil­dren and a preg­nant woman were among the dead.

“The Rus­sians fired at civil­ians al­most at point-blank range,” Syniehubov wrote on Telegram.

The Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vice of Ukraine, the se­cret po­lice force known by the acronym SBU, post­ed pho­tographs of the at­tacked con­voy. At least one truck ap­peared to have been blown up, with burned corpses in what re­mained of its truck bed. An­oth­er ve­hi­cle at the front of the con­voy al­so had been ablaze. Bod­ies lay on the side of the road or still in­side ve­hi­cles, which ap­peared pock­marked with bul­let holes.

Rus­sia’s De­fense Min­istry said its rock­ets de­stroyed Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary tar­gets in the area but has not com­ment­ed on ac­cu­sa­tions that it tar­get­ed flee­ing civil­ians. Russ­ian troops have re­treat­ed from much of the Kharkiv re­gion but they have con­tin­ued to shell the area.

And a Russ­ian strike in the Za­por­izhzhia re­gion’s cap­i­tal killed 30 peo­ple and wound­ed 88, Ukrain­ian of­fi­cials said. The British De­fense Min­istry said the Rus­sians “al­most cer­tain­ly” struck a hu­man­i­tar­i­an con­voy there with S-300 an­ti-air­craft mis­siles. Russ­ian-in­stalled of­fi­cials in Za­por­izhzhia blamed Ukrain­ian forces, but gave no ev­i­dence.

In oth­er de­vel­op­ments, in an ap­par­ent at­tempt to se­cure Moscow’s hold on the new­ly an­nexed ter­ri­to­ry, Russ­ian forces seized the di­rec­tor-gen­er­al of the Za­por­izhzhia Nu­clear Pow­er Plant, Ihor Murashov, on Fri­day, ac­cord­ing to the Ukrain­ian state nu­clear com­pa­ny En­er­goatom.

En­er­goatom said Russ­ian troops stopped Murashov’s car, blind­fold­ed him and took him to an undis­closed lo­ca­tion.

Rus­sia did not pub­licly com­ment on the re­port. The In­ter­na­tion­al Atom­ic En­er­gy Agency said Rus­sia told it that “the di­rec­tor-gen­er­al of the Za­por­izhzhia nu­clear pow­er plant was tem­porar­i­ly de­tained to an­swer ques­tions.”

The Vi­en­na-based IAEA said it “has been ac­tive­ly seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tions and hopes for a prompt and sat­is­fac­to­ry res­o­lu­tion of this mat­ter.”

The pow­er plant re­peat­ed­ly has been caught in the cross­fire of the war. Ukrain­ian tech­ni­cians con­tin­ued run­ning it af­ter Russ­ian troops seized the pow­er sta­tion, and its last re­ac­tor was shut down in Sep­tem­ber as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure amid on­go­ing shelling near­by.

In oth­er fight­ing re­port­ed Sat­ur­day, four peo­ple were killed by Russ­ian shelling Fri­day in the Donet­sk re­gion, gov­er­nor Pavlo Kyrylenko said. The Russ­ian army struck the south­ern Ukrain­ian city of Myko­laiv twice overnight, once with drones and the sec­ond time with mis­siles, ac­cord­ing to re­gion­al Gov. Vi­taliy Kim.

Af­ter Fri­day’s land grab, Rus­sia now claims sov­er­eign­ty over 15% of Ukraine, in what NA­TO Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Jens Stoltenberg called “the largest at­tempt­ed an­nex­a­tion of Eu­ro­pean ter­ri­to­ry by force since the Sec­ond World War.”

Ze­len­skyy on Fri­day for­mal­ly ap­plied for NA­TO mem­ber­ship, up­ping the pres­sure on West­ern al­lies to de­fend Ukraine.

In Wash­ing­ton, Pres­i­dent Joe Biden signed a bill Fri­day that pro­vides an­oth­er in­fu­sion — more than $12.3 bil­lion — in mil­i­tary and eco­nom­ic aid linked to the war Ukraine.

Source: As­so­ci­at­ed Press