Cauldron of war in Lyman puts Vladimir Putin’s annexation on thin ice

In the white and gold St George’s Hall of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin strolled onto the stage to rapturous applause.

Addressing a crowd of dignitaries, the Russian president formally annexed four regions of Ukraine, promising they would be part of the country “forever”.

But 500 miles to the south, his army was facing one of its worst defeats in the war so far – in one of the very regions Putin had just claimed for the nation.

Ukraine’s army on Friday had all but completed the encirclement of Lyman, a key city in Donetsk that serves as a logistical hub for Russia’s army across the front.

In fact, one of the men who stood on stage with Putin under golden chandeliers was separatist leader Dennis Pushilin, who hours earlier had been forced to admit Lyman was “semi-encircled”.

Between four and 6,000 Russian soldiers now face capture or death from the surrounding Ukrainian army, in what Kyiv officials have termed a “cauldron”.

Mr Pushlin, appointed head of Donetsk region by Putin, claimed that Russian troops were still in control of the highway to Svatove, in the neighbouring Luhansk region – the only escape route from Lyman.

But given Ukraine’s ability to bring accurate fire onto the highway, Moscow’s forces are likely to sustain heavy losses if they attempt to break out through the narrow salient.

Lyman has served as a major hub for the Russian military in the north of Donetsk. Its capture will mark one of Kyiv’s most important gains in the ongoing counter-offensive that liberated swathes of land in Donetsk and Kharkiv earlier this month.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to the Ukrainian president, said: “Russia will have to ask for an exit from the Lyman cauldron. Only if, of course, those banqueting in the Kremlin care about their soldiers.”

Another key adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky posted a picture on Twitter of a cauldron boiling under a fire.

If Putin was himself feeling the heat, he gave no sense of it under the golden chandeliers of St George’s Hall.

At one point, he invited the new “leaders” of the four annexed regions – Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk – on stage to put their hands on top of his and chant “Russia” over and again.

With his troops fearing for their lives, he barely mentioned the Russian army, instead reserving the focus of his speech for ranting against the West.

The Russian leaders dwelled at length on Britain and America’s historic wrongdoings from the Opium Wars to the Indian Mutiny. While accusing the Kyiv regime of being “Nazis”, he accused Britain of cruelty during its bombing of Dresden during the Second World War.

In another broadside, he accused the “Satanic” West of rejecting morality and religion, launching into a tirade on the topic of gender identity.

“Do we really want to see perversions that lead to degradation and extinction be imposed on children in our schools from the earliest years? For it to be drilled into them that there are supposedly some genders besides women and men, and offered the chance to undergo sex change operations?” he asked, directing the question to “all citizens of Russia” as well as the assembled dignitaries in the Grand Kremlin Palace.

When he did offer peace talks with Kyiv, Putin said Russia was willing to talk to Ukraine only if it concedes territory.

“The choice of people in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are not up for discussion,” he said before hundreds of Russian officials rose on their feet to applaud.

“They made their choice, and Russia is not going to betray it.”

Russian state TV said that the audience clapped so hard they “broke their hands”.

Later in the evening, after the speech, Putin went on stage in Red Square, where tens of thousands civil servants and students were bused for a concert celebrating the annexation.

Basking in the stage light with “Russia! We’re together forever!” written across it, Putin declared that “power is in the truth, and the truth is on our side. The victory will be ours,” before prompting the crowd to chant “Hurrah!”

With some of Russia’s biggest pop and rock stars barred from performing over their anti-war stance, the concert’s organisers brought in obscure, rabidly patriotic bands and a military orchestra to entertain the crowd from the stage set up near St Basil’s Cathedral before Putin went on stage.

Russian military bloggers and Right-wing nationalists were not among those celebrating, as they digested news of the Lyman encirclement.

After videos emerged of Ukrainian troops in Yampil, about 17km (10.5 miles) from the town in northern Donetsk, Russian sources reported that the Kremlin’s forces had been pushed back to Lyman’s ”administrative border“.

“Nothing will stop Ukrainian formations developing an offensive deep into Russian territory,” Rybar, an authoritative Russian blogger, wrote of the possible imminent defeat.

The claim was supported by Karolina Hird, a reacher for the US-based Institute for the Study of War, who said: ”The collapse of the [Russian] pocket around Lyman may allow – depending on how Ukrainian forces decide to pursue further gains - to unhinge this line and open up potential further advances east.”

The fall of Lyman will also mark a dilemma for Russia, raising questions about the violability of its new borders.

Just a few hours before Putin signed the annexation decrees, his spokesman still could not say for sure what Russia was actually annexing.

Dmitry Peskov admitted that he was not sure if Russia was annexing the regions in their pre-war borders or only the areas its troops currently hold.

After Putin’s annexation speech, Mr Zelensky dismissed the call for any peace talks while Putin remains president.

“It’s clearly impossible to negotiate with this Russian president: he knows nothing about dignity and honestly that’s why we’re ready for dialogue with Russia – but with another president of Russia,” the Ukrainian leader said on social media after Putin’s speech.

Soon after the annexation announcement, Mr Zelensky said his country has applied for a fast-track membership to Nato, a request the military bloc is unlikely to accept.

Putin’s attacks on the West in his Kremlin speech were an attempt to rally emerging economies against the US, Moscow watchers said.

“The whole world is a battlefield, Putin is saying,” Tatyana Stanovaya, an analyst, remarked. “This is obviously a Third World War – a cold one so far.”