The Russian army has confirmed reports on Saturday which stated that it had seized the strategic town of Lyman in eastern Ukraine, on the road to two key cities still under Kyiv’s control.
“Following the joint actions of the units of the militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Russian armed forces, the town of Krasny Liman has been entirely liberated from Ukrainian nationalists,” the defence ministry said in a statement, confirming an announcement a day earlier by pro-Moscow separatists.
Krasny Liman, which had a population of around 20,000 people before the hostilities broke out, is the town’s old name.
Located in the north of the eastern Donetsk region, Lyman lies on the road to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the capital of the Ukrainian-controlled part of the region.
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron urged Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday to agree to an immediate cease-fire and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. The three leaders spoke for 80 minutes in a phone call at the initiative of the French and German leaders, a news release from the German government said. Scholz and Macron called on Putin to negotiate directly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to end the three-month conflict.
Putin said Moscow was ready to continue peace talks with Kyiv, Russia’s Tass news agency reported, citing the Kremlin press service. He blamed the lack of diplomatic progress on Ukraine. Zelensky said Friday that Ukraine was not eager to talk with Putin but that negotiations would be necessary to stop the war.
The German and French leaders also called on Putin to improve the “humanitarian situation of the civilian population” in Ukraine. Putin, meanwhile, warned the West against continuing to send Ukraine Western weapons, Tass reported.
Putin, Scholz and Macron also discussed the global food crisis, which has been exacerbated by Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports. The U.N. World Food Program warned that millions of people around the world face rising food prices and hunger as Russia obstructs Ukrainian grain exports.
Putin pledged to Scholz and Macron that if Ukraine demines areas of the sea around ports, Russia would not use the opportunity to take “offensive actions,” the German statement said. The three leaders agreed that the United Nations would play a key role in reaching an agreement on opening the ports.
“Russia is ready to help find options for unhampered exports of grain, including exports of Ukrainian grain from the Black Sea ports,” the Kremlin said, according to Tass.
But Putin repeated Moscow’s misleading claim that Western sanctions were primarily to blame for global food supply issues. Putin told Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi in a phone call Thursday that the West must lift sanctions in order for Russia to take action on the food crisis, according to a Kremlin readout of the call.
