Ukrainian troops said they have taken the village of Yampil in the eastern Donetsk region, a significant objective in their efforts to encircle Russian and pro-Russian forces in the town of Lyman.
“Yampil is ours,” a soldier said in a brief video posted by Ukrainian troops. He is standing in front of a building with a sign that says: “Yampil school complex.”
Pro-Russian Telegram channels have described a bleak situation for the approximately 2,000 remaining troops in the area.
One prominent channel with more than 800,000 subscribers commented on Friday that Russian Armed Forces “withdrew from Yampil to Lyman.”
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine managed to break through the defensive orders of the RF (Russian Federation) Armed Forces and force the Russian troops to retreat to the city (Lyman),” the channel, which goes by the name of Rybar, wrote.
“The Lyman defensive line has narrowed to the administrative boundaries of the city itself. If emergency measures are not taken in the near future to release the Lyman and transfer a significant part of the reserves, then the city, together with its defenders, will fall, and nothing will stop Ukrainian formations from developing an offensive deep into Russian territories,” Rybar added.
The head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic later conceded that Yampil and the nearby village of Drobysheve “are not fully under our control.”
Denis Pushilin called the news from Lyman “disturbing” in a Telegram post.
“Our guys are fighting, we are pulling up reserves, we must hold out, but the enemy has also deployed serious forces,” Pushilin added.