Sharjah24 – Reuters: Ukraine on Sunday claimed full control of the eastern logistics hub of Lyman, its most significant battlefield gain from Russia in weeks, providing a potential staging post for further attacks to the east while heaping further pressure on the Kremlin.

The stinging setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin was delivered after he proclaimed the annexation of four regions covering nearly a fifth of Ukraine on Friday, an area that includes Lyman. Kyiv and the West have condemned the proclamation as an illegitimate farce.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the capture of the town, where Ukrainian flags were raised over civic buildings on Saturday, demonstrated that Ukraine is capable of dislodging Russian forces and showed the impact Ukraine's deployment of advanced Western weapons was having on the conflict.

"As of 1230 (0930 GMT), Lyman is fully cleared," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a short video clip on his Telegram channel. "Thank you to our troops ... Glory to Ukraine!"

"Over the past week, the number of Ukrainian flags in Donbas has increased. There will be even more in a week's time," Zelenskiy said in an earlier address, using the name for the combined Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday that it was pulling troops out of the Lyman area "in connection with the creation of a threat of encirclement".

It did not mention Lyman in its daily update on fighting in Ukraine on Sunday, although it said Russian forces had destroyed seven artillery and missile depots in the Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Donetsk.

The Ukrainian military said in its evening statement on Sunday that its forces had repelled Russian advances in several areas - particularly in Donetsk region near Bakhmut and Spirne, just inside Donetsk region near Lysychansk, a major centre in neighbouring Luhansk region.