▲ Ukrainian soldiers waving flags on signs in Lehman city


On the 1st (local time), Ukraine succeeded in recapturing Lehman, the northern gateway city of the eastern Luhansk Oblast.



Reuters reported, citing a Ukrainian military spokesman, that Russia suffered a decisive blow a day after annexation of the occupied territories.



"We are already in Lehman," Serhi Cherevati, spokesman for the Eastern Army of Ukraine, said in a statement.



A spokeswoman for Cherevati, who announced that Ukrainian forces had surrounded Russian forces in Lehman this morning, delivered news of the successful entry into Lehman within just a few hours.



The chief of staff to the President of Ukraine posted a video showing two smiling Ukrainian soldiers affixing the Ukrainian flag to a city sign that read "Lyman".



One of the soldiers said, "On October 1st, the flag is unfolding and poking in our land. Lehman will be Ukraine."



"Russian forces have between 5,000 and 5,500 men in Lehman," Cherevati said.



Russia's Rianovosti news agency, citing the Russian Ministry of Defense, said its troops had withdrawn from the base in Lehman.



The dpa news agency also reported that Russian troops had withdrawn from the strategically important Lehman.





Ukraine, which recaptured Kharkiv last month, has continued to fight against Russia in the gateway city of Lehman to advance into Luhansk.



"The reason Lehmann is important is that it is the next step towards the liberation of Donbas," Cherevati said.



"Some are surrendering," he said. "There were a lot of casualties in the Russian army," he said. "But the operation is not over yet."



Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of the four Ukrainian states, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporiza and Kherson the day before, and signed a treaty annexing the region into Russia.



Ukraine intensified its offensive for territorial recovery regardless of Russia's annexation treaty, and eventually succeeded in planting the Ukrainian flag in Lehman a day after annexation was declared.



(Photo = video capture provided by the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine, Yonhap News)