A video report by BBC journalists shows what remains of the Russian army’s chaotic retreat from Liman: dead Russian soldiers abandoned by the side of the road, objects and equipment left behind in the chaotic escape, and a destroyed city.

“Ukraine is returning its territories, it has the initiative. But among the ruins, victory may seem bleak. A journey into the heart of battle. And here among the pines are the horrors of war. Along the way, there is evidence of the human cost of Russia’s defeat. The bodies of the dead soldiers are still lying where they fell,” says Orla Gerin, a BBC correspondent.

Warning, image with emotional impact.

“Ukrainian volunteers are monitoring the dead in Russia, trying to help identify the remains. Unknown soldiers in Vladimir Putin’s war, left behind during the retreat of his troops. They used to be somebody’s husband or somebody’s son,” says Geren.

The footage then shows a Soviet-era teenage novel titled Adventure Library among the many personal effects and equipment left behind by Russian soldiers as they tried to escape the “Lyman Pocket.” Barely noticeable mines are another “legacy” left by the Russian military in Liman.

BBC journalists also filmed the lifeless bodies of Russian soldiers being carried by Ukrainians in sacks for burial.

Complete humiliation of Vladimir Putin in Lyman

“Here is evidence not only of fighting, but also of desperate attempts by Russian troops to escape,” says Orla Geren, pointing to a pile of items left behind by Moscow’s soldiers.

“What happened here was not only the defeat of President Putin, it was a complete humiliation,” she says, recalling that last Friday the Kremlin leader announced the annexation of occupied Ukrainian territories, in particular the city of Lyman in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region.

“He said that they will be in Russia forever. Well, looking around here, you get a completely different picture,” the British journalist emphasizes.

Literally a day after the lavish ceremony organized in Moscow of the official “unification” with Russia of the territories of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions under the control of the invading forces, the city of Lyman was liberated from Ukraine.

Russian troops retreated from here at the last moment after the Ukrainian armed forces blocked all their supply routes one by one.

The BBC report also showed the devastation left by the Russians and months of war in Liman, a town of around 20,000 people before Vladimir Putin ordered a “special military operation” on February 24.

On Wednesday, Putin’s press secretary Dmytro Peskov, in turn, emphasized that the occupied Ukrainian territories will belong to Russia “forever and will not be returned.”

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