A video shared on Twitter shows Ukrainian troops dancing before seeing the victory in the city of Lyman, which they recaptured from Russian forces on Saturday.
“When you see the troops Ukrainian women are about to surround Lyman,” wrote Ukrainian journalist Oleksiy Sorokin of the kyiv Independent, tweeting the video, which has now been viewed 1.8 million times.
The video shows the soldiers gathered inside around what appears to be a military vehicle before the room darkens and they dance, waving red lights in the air.
Here are the images of the soldiers dancing in Lyman:
Another video, shared on Twitter by user Ilya Ayzin, allegedly shows Ukrainian troops swaying from side to side as they walk towards Lyman.
“The Armed Forces enter Lyman Ayzin wrote. “Ours know how to light up the mood”.
RIA Novosti, a Russian state-owned media organization, reported that the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed on Saturday that Moscow had troops have been withdrawn from the Ukrainian city, which had been occupied since May.
The successful operation to recapture the city came after a Ukrainian army spokesman said on Friday that the encirclement near the city was “in the final stage”.
“All enemy approaches and logistics routes, through which they delivered ammunition and manpower, are in fact under [Ukrainian] fire control ]”, spokesman Serhii Cherevatyi said.
Lyman is a city in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, a of the four regions where Russians held referendum votes to join Russia earlier this week.
The results of the referendum votes were criticized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, who described them as “propaganda show”. Russian President Vladimir Putin used the votes as a basis to illegally annex the territories.
The Russian leader’s annexation and referendum votes have been widely criticized.
“The documents signed in the Kremlin do not determine who has sovereignty over the Ukrainian lands. Ukrainian soldiers marching on Lyman do,” Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia, tweeted on Friday.
“I strongly condemn Russia’s illegal annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. It is a serious violation of both international law and Ukraine’s sovereignty,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday.
Meanwhile, Ukraine emphasized that annexation would not alter its military goals of ultimately freeing all territory from Russian control.
“We will liberate our territory by military means. And our actions do not depend so much on what the Russian Federation thinks or wants, but on the military potential that Ukraine has,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told the Associated Press on Thursday.
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