Russian troops are expelled from Lyman, a day after Putin annexed the town in eastern Ukraine

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed on Saturday afternoon that it has withdrawn its troops from the strategic city of Lyman in eastern Ukraine.

“Due to the threat of encircling us, allied troops have withdrawn from Krasnyi Lyman to other better positions,” the ministry said, according to Russian state news agencies.

Krasnyi Lyman (the adjective Krasnyi translates as red) was the old Soviet name for Lyman, a strategic city that Ukrainian forces claim to have entered.

At the end of May, Russian troops transformed the city located in the Donetsk region into a major logistics hub for troop deployment and ammunition supply.

The city is also a key railway hub connecting the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv regions of eastern Ukraine.

The withdrawal comes a day after Vladimir Putin signed “accession treaties” that formalized Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, marking the largest forcible takeover of territory in Europe since World War II.

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