(WARNING: Video includes graphic content.) Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated the capture of the Lyman, a city of 20,000 people that’s a railroad hub, back in May 2021. Now, however, the 5,000 Russian troops occupying the city are encircled and desperately trying to flee.
As the video–taken from three different sources–shows, the Russians are literally lining up to escape the Ukrainian siege: Russian vehicles line one of the few remaining open roadways to get out of the city, but as the second segment shows, the success of the retreat is spotty: a number of vehicles were destroyed by Ukrainian forces, leaving corpses and a freshly ransacked minivan in the road.
The final segment shows Ukrainian ground forces–obviously with high morale–doing a kind of conga dance as they approach the city. It appears Russia’s annexation of four eastern Ukrainian provinces isn’t going as smoothly or with the support of the people as Putin would have everyone believe.