New York is in the hands of the Russians
On Tuesday, the Russian military claimed to have captured the city of New York in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
In its daily report, the Russian Defense Ministry stated that "the Center Group (...) has liberated Novgorodskoye (Russian name for New York, editor's note), one of the largest cities in the Toretsk agglomeration and a strategically important logistics center." The city would be an important logistics hub for Ukrainian forces.
A little background
In the 19th century, German settlers settled in the city of New York, which carried that name until 1951. That year, as the Cold War raged, Soviet authorities decided to rename it "Novgorodskoye," reports Belgian newspaper La Libre.
In the summer of 2021, the city again became New York as pressure from Ukrainian militants increased.
And although Ukraine's surprise attack on Russian territory two weeks ago focused the attention of Russian forces on Kursk, it did not move the epicenter of the fighting, which remains in eastern Ukraine. Russian soldiers, better equipped, are making rapid progress there. Vladimir Putin has made the capture of the entire Donbass (including the Donetsk and Lugans regions) an absolute priority.
(SR and Manon Pierre for Tagtik/Source: La Libre/Illustration: Unsplash)
