The Limited Times

Lyman in Ukraine: Destroyed, liberated

3/3/2023, 10:41:17 AM


Pictures of Lyman's liberation went around the world. Now the city is in ruins, search parties are blowing up mines. The only thing nobody here is thinking about is reconstruction: the Russian troops are moving closer again.

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Dangerous operation in the open field: Ukrainian officers from the State Service for Emergency Situations clear unexploded ammunition and detonate mines near the town of Lyman - remnants of the Russian occupation.

The area around the northernmost city in Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine has been badly scarred by the war, as have the buildings in the city - and their residents.

The front is only a good 25 kilometers away.

Some of the remaining people are leaving their homes, a settlement near Lyman.

Roman Kanishchev, resident:


»Our police came yesterday and asked us to leave the village.

A Russian breakthrough was possible, they said.”

Sofia, 9 years old:


»Dad said we should go to sleep, then we woke up, got dressed and waited.

And we took the cat with us.”

Reporter: "Why was it important for you to take her?"

Sofia: "Because she would have waited for us."

Before the war, Lyman had a population of about 20,000.

As an important railway junction, the city is of strategic importance for both sides.

On May 27 last year, Russian troops took the city after heavy fighting and renamed it the "Soviet Red Lyman".

The turning point came at the beginning of October: the Ukrainian army was able to regain control of Lyman, the occupiers gave up the city - the pictures went around the world at the time.

After the Russian soldiers left, the Ukrainians said they found 200 graves and one mass grave.

No one knows how many people died or fled in the battles for Lyman.

Those who are still there lack everything: running water, electricity, gas and heat.

Volunteers bring humanitarian aid to Lyman, which looks like a ghost town.

Reconstruction is out of the question.

Recently there had been increased Russian offensives on the frontline towns in the Donbass: on Bakhmut, Kupjansk, Wuhledar and also near Kreminna, which is less than an hour's drive from Lyman.

The city that was completely destroyed and then liberated - and now back within range of the Russian invaders.