The Ukrainian troops increase their advance by another twelve kilometers, threaten the strategic transport hub of the city of Kreminna and approach Lugansk
After liberating the strategic city of Liman last Saturday, Ukrainian forces continue to push east into the Donetsk region. This Monday they recovered the town of Torske, located very close to the border with the neighboring Lugansk region. This was announced by the spokesman for the Eastern Group of the kyiv Army, Serhiy Cherevati, before the television cameras. The presence of Ukrainian soldiers in Torske was also confirmed by the head of the loyal Administration of Lugansk, Serhiy Gaidai.
Torske, some twelve kilometers east of Liman, is along the line of advance of the Ukrainian troops, twenty-two kilometers from Kreminna, an important transport hub in the Luhansk region, from where they could advance to the southeast to recapture Lisichansk and Severodonetsk. According to Cherevati, the Ukrainian units are being attacked with artillery fire to prevent their advance, as the Russian troops and the Lugansk separatists try to build defenses in Kreminna that will allow them to gain a foothold and repel the offensive.
The military spokesman also referred to the Kremlin soldiers who were surrounded in Limán, pointing out that “some were liquidated, others were taken prisoner and some managed to escape in columns of vehicles or small groups.” But Cherevati warned that “these Russian units that have withdrawn from Liman are trying to hide in the forest, in a heavily mined area.” The Ukrainian Army also reported taking the villages of Miroliubovka, between the cities of Mykolaiv and Kherson, and, further northeast, Gavrilovka, near Zolotaya Balka, which was recovered during the past weekend.
First reservists
Meanwhile, the Moscow Ministry of Defense reported the arrival in Lugansk of the first Russian reservists, mobilized after the decree of the president, Vladimir Putin, on September 21, to join the front. The control of the four newly annexed regions – Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – is precisely the main mission for which the reservists have been mobilized at the present time.
The State Duma (Lower House of the Russian Parliament) also unanimously approved today, without any votes against and without abstentions, the annexation treaties of these four territories after Putin signed them last Friday in the Kremlin with the respective separatist leaders. . The ratification will pass tomorrow to the Council of the Federation (Upper House) to later acquire the category of law once the Russian president signs it. Together with Crimea, a peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014, they account for 20% of the surface of Ukraine. However, as is being seen in the cases of Kherson, Donetsk and also Zaporizhia, the Kremlin Army does not yet fully control these regions.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, clarified that the annexed area of Donetsk and Lugansk is the one that corresponds to the administrative limits of 2014. However, he did not know how to clearly answer the journalists how it will be in the cases of Kherson and Zaporizhia. He said that “we will continue to consult with the population of these regions to determine their borders.” Peskov was then questioned as to whether or not the areas of Kherson and Zaporizhia under the control of the Ukrainian Army are part of Russia, to which he responded by saying that “I have nothing more to add now.” He, too, was unable to answer the question about how these consultations with the population will take place, if through another referendum or how.
What Peskov did explain is that “it was Ukraine’s orientation towards NATO and the confirmation of its future integration into the bloc that became one of the reasons for the Special Military Operation”, a name used by the Russian authorities to call The invasion launched on February 24. According to the presidential spokesman, Moscow “is closely following” the situation regarding kyiv’s future relationship with the Alliance after the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, requested membership last Friday in response to the annexations.
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